Polycom Announces Industry Firsts for Voice and Video over IP with First SIP Conference Phone and Entry Video System

PLEASANTON, Calif. – Jan. 24, 2005 – Polycom®, Inc. (NASDAQ: PLCM), the world’s leading provider of unified collaborative communications solutions, today announced two new solutions that expand its award-winning voice-over-IP (VoIP) and VSX™ flagship group video conferencing product lines while broadening Polycom’s industry leading support for SIP. The SoundStation® IP 4000 is a new IP conference phone based on the award-winning, and iconic triangular-shaped SoundStation line delivering unrivaled voice quality and microphone pick-up capabilities and expanding Polycom’s support for SIP to conference phones. Also supporting SIP, the VSX 6000 is a new entry-level addition to the breakthrough VSX line of video conferencing systems and is designed to reduce the cost barrier for high-quality video conferencing and collaboration.

“Polycom continues to deliver the ultimate communications experience, and we are starting our 15th anniversary year with continued innovation,” said Steve Huey, chief marketing officer of Polycom. “We are extending our end-to-end support for SIP with the first SIP conference phone and the industry’s only entry-level video conferencing system that supports SIP.”

Polycom SoundStation IP 4000 – the new standard for SIP enabled businesses
The SoundStation IP 4000 SIP conference phone delivers remarkable voice quality and microphone pick-up capability enabling people to be heard clearly up to 10 feet away from the phone. The phone features a back-lit, graphical LCD, gated microphones and expanded microphone capabilities for larger conference rooms, and SIP support for BroadSoft and Sylantro Systems environments. The phone’s 248 x 68 pixel resolution LCD offers easy access to the most common business telephony functions including transfer, hold, redial, and conference. The combination of a SoundStation IP 4000 conference phone with Polycom’s complete line of SoundPoint® IP desktop phones, provides customers with a range of solutions for SIP-based communications environments, which can deliver productivity enhancing applications on the phones and flexible telephony options with Polycom reliability and quality.

“Our industry-first SIP conference phone combined with our award-winning SoundPoint IP phones offers customers a range of high-quality, standards-based VoIP phones for different desktop environments and the conference room,” said Sunil Bhalla, senior vice president and general manager of voice communications at Polycom. “We are pleased to launch our new SIP conference phone with two leaders in the VoIP application server market – BroadSoft and Sylantro Systems.”

Polycom VSX 6000 – high-performance IP video conferencing that breaks the cost barrier
The Polycom VSX 6000 is a new entry-level video conferencing system ideal for smaller, IP-ready conference rooms and for companies that require high-quality video collaboration on a limited budget. The VSX 6000 is the industry’s only entry-level video conferencing system that offers superb quality audio fidelity with 14 kHz audio, 360-degree voice pickup from the VSX microphone array, and Polycom 14kHz StereoSurround™ for unprecedented sound quality and clarity that uniquely recreates the spatial quality of sound from a participant’s location in the conference room at the far end. Polycom VSX is the only video conferencing line in the industry to offer audio error concealment and the capability to add voice-only participants with the integration of the SoundStation VTX 1000 conference phone.

The VSX 6000 is also the only entry-level system that offers essential features such as second monitor support, dual monitor emulation, multiple options for high resolution data sharing, extensive SIP support for Microsoft and Nortel Networks environments, and built-in Cisco CallManager 4.0 ECS support. The VSX 6000 will also join the entire VSX product line in the next release of Avaya’s Video Telephony Solution Powered By Polycom™. The VSX series maintains unsurpassed video quality in an H.264 video call at low bandwidths, while at the same time presenting data and projecting voices in 14 kHz audio, a scenario that no other video conferencing product can support. The VSX series offers proven superiority in Quality of Service initiatives with outstanding video error concealment.

Like the VSX 7000 and VSX 8000 models, the VSX 6000 offers the unique ability to launch video calls and add voice-only participants through a Polycom SoundStationVTXâ„¢ 1000 conference phone for added ease of use. Various collaboration capabilities are available based on customer needs, including People+Contentâ„¢ IP on a wireless network or People+Content through the VisualConcertâ„¢ VSX. Web streaming and closed captioning are also supported.

“The VSX 6000 is hands-down the best entry-level video conferencing system on the market today with unmatched quality and features,” said Ed Ellet, senior vice president and general manager of video communications at Polycom. “With the VSX 6000, Polycom is again setting the industry standard for driving the cost of collaborative communications down while delivering innovative new features and without sacrificing quality or performance.”

Polycom MGCâ„¢ bridges and VSX video systems interoperate today with SIP implementations from Microsoft Live Communication Server and Nortel Networks Multimedia Communication Server (MCS) 5100 and 5200 products. Polycom is working with these partners and others to lead the development of video extensions for the SIP standard within the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force).

Pricing and Availability
Polycom VSX 6000 is now available for a manufacturer’s suggested resale price of US$4,999 from certified Polycom channel partners. The SoundStation IP 4000 for BroadSoft and Sylantro Systems environments is now available for a manufacturer’s suggested resale price of US$1,099 through Polycom VoIP Certified Resellers.

About Polycom
Polycom, Inc. is the world’s technology leader of high-quality, easy-to-use video, voice, data and web conferencing and collaboration solutions. The Polycom Office™ is our continued commitment to make distance communications as natural and interactive as being there by providing best-in-class conferencing solutions that are interoperable, integrated and intuitive to the user. The Polycom Office is based on industry standards and supported by an open architecture that promotes interoperability in multi-vendor environments and complements leading network infrastructure platforms. For additional information, call 1-800-POLYCOM (765-9266) or +1-408-526-9000, or visit the Polycom web site at http://www.polycom.com/.

Polycom, the Polycom logo, SoundStation and SoundPoint are registered trademarks and Polycom Office, VSX, People+Content, Siren 14 and Polycom StereoSurround are trademarks of Polycom in the U.S. and various countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. ©2005, Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.