Avaya Gets Ex-Polycom Video Executive

Avaya has hired former Polycom executive Joe Sigrist as its new vice president and general manager of video. The Avaya executive announcements follows a host of product and solution announcements around the video business last week.

Avaya said Sigrist will play a key role in expanding Avaya’s focus on video and business collaboration as well as oversee the go-to-market strategy for the emerging area within Avaya.

Sigrist was most recently senior vice president and general manager of Polycom’s video solutions business where he was responsible for strategy, product development, product management and marketing. He’s also worked at Octel Communications, Ascend Communications, and served as president and general manager of Lucent’s Edge Access Division. His career has also included a stint as president and CO of Hammerhead Systems, a network equipment start-up.

Avaya made a splash in the video space recently announcing the Avaya Flare Experience, a PC tablet designed with video conferencing in mind.

Sigrist’s appointment follows a management reshuffling and reorganization at Polycom where voice and video were combined into a single unified communications business, and Joe Burton of Cisco was appointed as CTO of unified communications for Polycom.

The management changes follow a host of executive switches and poaching during 2010 that most famously saw ex-HP CEO Mark Hurd appointed as president of Oracle.