Unified communications systems are among the trickiest for an enterprise to install, for they demand honing hardware and software to carry a converged data stream bearing the weight of almost all of an organization’s information.
To meet what they say are demand by customers for help, Hewlett-Packard Co, Polycom Inc. and Microsoft Corp. have teamed to create two certified bundles of products the partners say should go a long way to quickening UC implementations.
“What we are doing is joining hands to deliver a compelling solution addressing lowering the cost of ownership and reducing the complexity of implementation,” said Kowshik Bhat, HP’s global solutions marketing manager.
“Customers do not have the time to do interoperability testing,” he said, so the three partners are offering systems that do.
The packages, which have somewhat unwieldy names, are called
–HP AppSystem for Microsoft Lync with Polycom RealPresence Video, which is aimed at organizations with from 1,000 to 3,000 users.
AppSystem solutions are aimed at organizations that use Lync as their UC platform and come in racks that include HP top of rack switches, servers and storage and Polycom’s RealPresence RMX 1500 video conferencing and management platform.
Options are load balancers and application delivery controllers from F5 Networks and a session border controller from Acme Packet
Because the target market is larger organizations, AppSystem is sold direct from HP;
–HP and Polycom Rich Media Communications, sold by HP integrators, are bundles of networking and the RealPresence software servers.
RealPresence includes a universal collaboration server, which can connect disparate networks, a virtualization management server to virtualize bridging infrastructure, a resource manager and a video content manager.
Both packages are available with HP network assessment and implementation consulting services.
Pricing wasn’t immediately available, However, Bhat saidf Lync licences are sold separately.
John Antanaitis, Polycom’s vice-president said customers are telling the three partners they want best-of-breed solutions at a one-stop shop. These two packages are aimed at meeting that, he said.
“We know we have the best total cost of ownership,” he said, “and part of that’s driven by leveraging the latest industry standards like (the) H.264 High Profile (video protocol). This protocol uses up to 50 per cent less bandwidth than other solutions, he said.
Using standards-based solutions, Bhat added, customers can move from “expensive, proprietary lock-in technologies” without ripping and replacing legacy telephony systems.