Polycom Looks to Expand In Consumer Video Market

By Michelle Amodio, TMCnet Contributor

Telepresence provider Polycom (News - Alert) has its eyes on winning the video, voice and Web market share for consumers, and it is relying on small businesses and consumers to get there.

Polycom’s newest CEO, Andrew Miller has helped the company increase its presence in the industry at 41 percent in the last year, taking two of those points from Cisco (News - Alert), its known rival. According to Mercury News, Polycom expanded its employees, adding 537 new personnel in 2010 while increasing its annual sales by 26 percent. The company's stock price has also nearly doubled, giving Polycom a good standing chance against its competition.

Polycom is no longer going to be known for just its conference phones. The company plans to make its foray into consumer video through set-top boxes, television sets with embedded cameras and gaming consoles.

Miller, a former Cisco sales chief and Tandberg (News - Alert) CEO, seems to think Cisco has it all wrong when it comes to the Umi, Cisco’s set-top box video conferencing system in the consumer market. Priced at $599, Miller touts it as “not scalable and not affordable.” With that in mind, he wants to take Polycom in a better direction, giving consumers a different choice when it comes to the video market.

“Our vision is to go to any platform without having to worry about what’s on the other end,” he said, as reported by Forbes.

With partners like Microsoft, IBM (News - Alert) and Hewlett-Packard, Polycom is planning a growing consumer business for 2012. Already the company provides videoconferencing on Samsung’s Galaxy Tab, implemented as a Polycom app that allows the tablet to connect to the Polycom video conferencing systems. The app also connects to other third party telepresence and video conferencing platforms that use industry standard protocols.

With IBM and Microsoft (News - Alert), embedding Polycom’s technology into their products is just another way Polycom is able to reach the consumer market. The partner approach has helped Polycom increase its stock and gain market share.

Polycom won’t give up its place in the voice communications market, however.

“It will always be an aspect of our business. If you look at this triangular speaker phone, people still see that as our brand -- not only conference calling but also voice over IP technology. It's evolving, though,” said Miller to Mercury News.