discussUC

There is a lot to consider when choosing the right peripheral devices for your UC deployment and although cost is one of the considerations, unfortunately it is typically the only consideration for most organisations.

Polycom, Inc. the global leader in telepresence, video and voice communications solutions, today announced its Board of Directors has named Andrew Miller president and chief executive officer, effective today.

Mr. Miller succeeds Robert Hagerty, who will step down as CEO, president, and chairman and is resigning from the Board. To facilitate a smooth transition, Mr. Hagerty will serve as an advisor to Mr. Miller and the Board. Concurrent with the CEO succession, David DeWalt, currently Polycom's lead independent director, will assume the role of chairman of the Board of Directors. The Board plans to appoint Mr. Miller to the Board of Directors shortly following this year's Annual Stockholders Meeting.

Mr. Miller, who joined Polycom in 2009 as executive vice president of Global Field Operations, has been successfully leading the Company's strategic initiatives to transform Polycom's go-to-market, build core strategic and service provider alliances, and launch the Polycom Open Collaboration Network.

"Andy Miller has been transformative in leading Polycom's shift to a more customer-centric execution model, which has already resulted in significant growth for the Company," said David DeWalt, Polycom chairman of the Board of Directors. "Andy's industry track record, proven leadership, and customer skills make him the ideal CEO to take Polycom to the next level. I also want to thank Bob Hagerty for growing Polycom from $37M to $1.1B over his 13 year tenure and for recruiting Andy to the Company, enabling this seamless succession."

"As the leading independent company in the fast-growing unified collaboration space, I believe Polycom is uniquely positioned to capture this significant market opportunity," said Mr. Miller. "Polycom has unbelievable employee talent at all levels of the organization, an amazing customer base, and a strong array of strategic and channel partnerships. With the same passion, intensity, and efficiency that has already produced better than planned results, I look forward to leading Polycom to greater customer intimacy and a stronger profit model. I want to thank Bob for his many years of excellent leadership."

"It has been an honor to have led such a talented group of directors, management members, and employees during my time at Polycom," said Mr. Hagerty. "Andy is a perfect successor to lead Polycom through its next phase of growth. I am truly proud of what we have achieved thus far, and I believe Polycom has a tremendous opportunity in the exciting collaboration market."

Mr. Miller has a 28-year proven track record in the video and networking industries. During his 11 years at Cisco, he held several senior leadership roles in Sales, Marketing, and Services. As CEO of Tandberg, another leading video solutions provider, he led the Company through a period of significant revenue and profit growth. Immediately prior to joining Polycom, he was global president of IPC Information Systems, a leading trading technology and network connectivity provider. Mr. Miller received his BS in Business Administration from the University of South Carolina. He is on the Board of Directors for BroadSoft, former chairperson for the Stanford Executive Education Program, and a former fellow at the Aspen Institute.

Mr. DeWalt joined the Polycom board of directors in November 2005 and is a technology industry veteran who currently serves as CEO and president of McAfee, Inc. Previously, Mr. DeWalt held various management positions at EMC, Oracle, and other leading software and technology companies.

Polycom will file a supplement to its proxy statement for its 2010 Annual Stockholders Meeting to reflect the above changes and that Mr. Hagerty is no longer a nominee for Polycom's Board of Directors.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of speaking at Aberdeen’s CMO Summit 2009 in San Francisco on the topic of enabling collaboration in marketing teams. It was a fun experience and the audience asked some great questions. In most organizations, marketing as a line of business (functional department) has one of the highest demands for effective collaboration due to the creative and iterative nature of every day work flows. Following is a quick synopsis of my presentation I gave yesterday to Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) and marketing leaders from companies with some of the world's leading brands.

The organizational pressures of pushing both short term performance and long term brand building initiatives rest squarely on the shoulders of the CMO. Increased customer complexity in an age of new forms of media and social networking further add to the CMO's challenges. In addition, ever changing cultural and lifestyle choices among staff members and target markets makes the role of CMO one of the more hot seat executive positions in any company.

Further, strategic marketing initiatives in response to the pressures, complexity, and trends can often create fragmented marketing teams or “silos” which impact overall marketing department productivity by creating distance and communication barriers. The ability of marketing leaders to reduce distance barriers to enable collaboration and empowerment among staff members can ultimately lead to more streamlined marketing teams capable of faster decision making, better sharing and coordination of plans, goal setting and problem setting, and ultimately project option decisions, particularly in times of crises management.

Enter the importance of collaboration solutions for marketers – getting teams to work together closely on projects to achieve common goals. Voice and video conferencing, content sharing, and telepresence technologies can enable marketing teams to bust through silos and collaborate effectively regardless of their physical location. The application of collaboration solutions into marketing work flows can be in any number of everyday business processes including the following:

• Global Team Meetings
• Virtual 1:1s with CMO
• Strategic Planning Sessions
• Creative Process
• Project and Event Management
• Product Definition, Launch, and Life Cycle Management
• Design Review and Approval
• Editor and Analyst Briefings
• Sales Training
• Customer Demos and Presentations
• Partner Meetings and Councils

The benefits and business value of effective collaboration are quickly apparent to the entire marketing organization at multiple levels: work flow, employees, partners, and company ROI. Benefits will flow down through the department in the form of sharpened marketing processes and efficiency, impressive innovation and creative thinking, better decision making and moral levels of employees. Customers and partners will be more loyal due to tighter relationships with your team. The company as a whole will also see results with a faster time to market on new products and initiatives, reduced costs and carbon footprint, and ultimately increased shareholder value.

Put collaboration tools in place for your marketing organization - you will clearly see enhanced efficiency, productivity, and creativity leading both short term performance and long term results!

I’d like to introduce myself as one of the newest bloggers on the Avaya site. My name is Daryl Page, and I am the managing director for Avaya’s hospitality vertical solutions. I’m responsible for the overall definition, management and delivery of the Avaya strategy in these markets. My background includes several years at EDS, as a client industry executive and VP of CRM solutions practice, as well as a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers as a consultant for more than 15 years.

On the blog, I will be outlining our strategies in hospitality, and sharing experiences my team has around the innovative solutions we provide for hoteliers. We’ve assembled a team wakes up every day thinking of ways we can serve these vertical markets better. The team includes an interesting mix of technologists as well as folks with industry-specific backgrounds from hospitality and retail. Every now and again, I’ll turn over the reins to a team member to provide a different focus on what we’re seeing in the market.

One of the most exciting solutions we have to offer the hospitality market right now is our Guest Media Hub (“GMH”), a touch-screen in-room guest device. We’re one of the only companies offering a product that’s designed from the ground up to be placed in a guest room. It offers a rich multimedia experience, and gives hoteliers an opportunity to increase RevPar while also decreasing costs. We’ll have some great announcements very shortly on some of the first hotels to use the device.

Please feel free to comment directly on the blog, and you can also follow us on Twitter™ at (http://twitter.com/avguestmediahub). You can also reach me directly via email; darylpage at avaya dot com.