HP Gets Closer to Polycom After Cisco Divorce

Just weeks after HP severed its reseller agreement with Cisco amidst growing competition between the two technology giants in the data center, HP has gotten closer to Cisco’s telepresence and unified communications rival Polycom.

Click here to read how Cisco’s biggest partners stand to win more business following the Cisco-HP rift.

Polycom and HP have announced that HP will sell Polycom’s complete portfolio of voice and video technologies and the companies will collaborate on go-to-market activity and future technology development.

Click here for Channel Insider’s interview with HP’s new channel chief, Stephen DiFranco.

Analyst firm Gartner has said that total demand for visual communication solutions and services is projected to reach $8.6 billion, with a compound annual growth rate of nearly 18 percent between 2008 and 2013.

The HP-Polycom agreement also includes plans for interoperability between Polycom’s line of telepresence and video conferencing technologies and HP’s Halo telepresence service.

“Adoption of visual communications is growing rapidly and teaming with HP will increase the global market presence for Polycom’s standards-based solutions that combine market-leading performance with flexibility and investment protection,” said Bob Hagerty, CEO of Polycom, in a statement. “We are excited to expand our relationship with HP and to leverage the synergies with other Polycom Open Collaboration Network partners to deliver seamlessly interoperable UC solutions and services to customers.”

Polycom will leverage HP’s global footprint to bring its solutions to organizations looking to take their enterprises to geographies around the world.

“To address the challenges of operating globally, organizations are looking to visual and unified communications solutions to help them be more efficient, productive and competitive,” said Mark Golden, vice president, Network Services, HP, in a statement. “With the addition of Polycom technologies to our portfolio, HP can provide clients around the world with a complete range of open voice and visual communication solutions that simplify business communications while speeding collaboration with clients and key partners.”

Separately, Polycom announced an expansion of its unified communications relationship with Microsoft, which calls for the companies to jointly develop and deliver a portfolio of unified communications solutions.