Polycom is combining its video, telepresence, and voice development units into a single research and development organization. The company also is forming three new lines of business targeting the enterprise and government/public sector; service providers; and small to medium business customers – an area for which IDC reports worldwide information technology spending is expected to grow to nearly $630 billion by 2014.
"Polycom grew sharply in the first half of 2010 to a $1.2 billion revenue run rate, and we expect this growth to continue into 2011 and beyond," says Andy Miller, Polycom president and CEO. "Unified communications is expected to be one of the fastest growing sectors in technology, and Polycom is ideally positioned to deliver innovative solutions for our customers and strategic partners.
“To best capture this unprecedented opportunity, we have assembled a management team that is one of the best in technology,” he says. “By blending the video and voice development teams into one powerhouse UC innovation engine, we will further increase our agility and enable efficiencies in R&D. Additionally, the LOB structure allows us to better anticipate and deliver on our customer and partner needs."
Leading the charge will be Polycom’s existing management (with the exception of Joe Sigrist, previously senior vice president and general manager of video solutions, who has left the company and joined Avaya as well as the handful of new, but experienced, recruits.
That includes Joseph Burton, who serves as senior vice president, chief strategy and technology officer, general manager enterprise and service provider. He previously served as Cisco's CTO for unified communications. In that Cisco position since 2007, Burton’s work involved video technologies, WebEx collaboration, call management, and social computing. He also has held the post of co-general manager of Cisco's UC Software business unit.
Also new to Polycom is Sudhakar Ramakrishna, senior vice president and general manager products, and chief development officer. Joining Polycom on Oct. 11, Ramakrishna comes from Motorola where he was corporate vice president and general manager for wireless broadband access solutions and software operations. In that post Ramakrishna was instrumental in scaling the 4G (WiMAX and LTE) business and leading large teams of more than 2,300 employees and businesses worldwide. Previous to his tenure with Motorola, Ramakrishna was the vice president of product operations at Stoke Networks and a senior manager at 3Com and other companies.
Susan Hayden, meanwhile, has been named executive vice president and general manager for Polycom SMB. Polycom says Hayden – who will direct Polycom's LOB strategy – is well-known for building and expanding large-scale global operations in technology companies. Previously, she was group vice president of sales for OracleDirect. She’s also worked at SAP, Fidelity, Dun and Bradstreet Software, and Monster.com.
Polycom also has named Alan Rudolph senior vice president of Global Services. He previously served as senior vice president of applications management and consulting for Affiliated Computer Services, a Xerox Company, where he helped to transform the company into a services-focused organization. He also has run global application product delivery for IBM, and has held positions at Corio, Oracle, and other technology outfits.
Gary Rider has been tapped as president of Polycom’s operations in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. In that post he will complement Polycom's existing theater presidents in the Americas and Asia Pacific. He previously held the position of vice president of Europe global sales and marketing for NCR, and has held senior sales management positions for HP and Digital Equipment.
And Ashley Goldsmith joins as senior vice president of human resources, having come from F. Hoffmann-La Roche.
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