HP sells videoconferencing units to Polycom. About time. ? Skype ...

HP?s Visual Collaboration businesses will have a much better home at Polycom. Polycom folks understand how people talk at work, their engineers build quality product, and their brand defined office conferencing long before Cisco or Skype. The deal is expected to close in the next few months, followed by quarters of product line consolidation, rebranding, some light reorganization, and a renewed marketing push to get the last of this year?s enterprise IT budget from existing and new customers.

Everyone in this space is competing with Skype at the high-convenience, low-cost, network-effects end and Cisco at the high-touch, high-cost, tiny-private-network end. The extra talent, customers, and technology could buy them time to respond to video conferencing?s commoditization.

News release follows:

Polycom and HP Announce Broad Strategic Alliance

• Polycom to Acquire HP?s Visual Collaboration Business and Become an Exclusive Partner to HP for Telepresence and Certain Video Unified Communications Solutions

• HP to combine its industry leading networking with Polycom?s leading UC to deliver comprehensive communication solutions to its customers

PLEASANTON, Calif. ? Jun 01, 2011 : HP (NYSE:HPQ) and Polycom, Inc. (Nasdaq: PLCM), a global leader in unified communications (UC), today announced they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Polycom will acquire the assets of HP?s Visual Collaboration business, including the Halo Products and Managed Services business.

In conjunction with this acquisition, HP and Polycom have agreed to establish a strategic relationship in which Polycom will serve as an exclusive partner to HP for telepresence and certain video UC solutions, including both resale and internal HP deployments. The two companies have also agreed to make available Polycom?s video applications for HP?s WebOS platform.

The alliance extends Polycom?s leadership in the Unified Communications and Collaboration market with HP?s installed base of visual collaboration products and technology. The exclusive partnership broadens the company?s strategic relationship with HP and expands the UC solutions HP offers its global customer base.

Under the terms of its agreements with HP, Polycom will provide expertise in software technology and UC infrastructure, covering the full continuum of integrated and secure mobile, desktop, room and telepresence solutions. HP will provide its expertise and leadership in go-to-market strategies for UC solutions and will resell Polycom?s UC solutions including: personal and group UC devices, UC infrastructure, UC managed services, and audio/video software.

This alliance combines HP?s networking scale and global reach with Polycom?s expertise in video conferencing to provide customers world-class video and UC solutions through Polycom infrastructure deployed on HP networking and systems. This also allows customers to capitalize on the critical importance of networking as the foundation for a superior video experience and tap the global services of HP for turnkey communications solutions.

"This announcement is a truly groundbreaking development in the UC industry, creating a path for Polycom and HP to offer customers an end-to-end UC solution with an unparalleled user experience, interoperability, investment protection, and ease of deployment," said Andrew Miller, Polycom president and CEO. "The transaction makes the most of the strength of two industry leading, customer-centric organizations to offer a seamless UC experience with high-quality, enterprise-class telepresence solutions to millions of customers. Our broadened relationship with HP underscores Polycom?s focus and commitment to bring the most advanced and innovative UC solutions to market."

"Customers will benefit from this transaction and alliance because they will receive the focus of two world-class technology companies through greater service and product opportunities," said Shane Robison, HP executive vice president and chief strategy and technology officer. "This transaction and alliance allows us to focus on executing our strategy in cloud computing and connectivity, while ensuring the long-term care of our customers and development of our services business."

Polycom expects this acquisition to be slightly accretive to earnings upon closing. The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions and is expected to close in Q3 2011.

Source: http://skypejournal.com/blog/2011/06/01/hp-sells-videoconferencing-units-to-polycom-about-time/

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