Battle of the Video Conferencing Vendors aka Polycom vs Tandberg

March 10th, 2010 | Tags: , ,

Okay, so perhaps I am being a little melodramatic, Polycom and Tandberg are not literally at each other’s throats…not yet anyways! However they are both aggressively battling it out to become the no.1 vendor for all things that surround video conferencing – as you can imagine UC and Office Communications Server is definately a space they want to dominate.

However to their credit they have both taken (from what it seems) a very different plan of attack…

  • Polycom have decided to launch a range of devices (HDX Series) that not only have an embedded Communicator-esque client, but also interrogate scheduling information within Microsoft Exchange (2007 support now, 2010 later). This effectively allows your video conferencing device to become a resource within your Exchange address list and along with the Outlook plug-in (Polycom Conferencing for Outlook or PCO) meetings can be setup entirely by calendar request.
  • Tandberg however are very happy to admit that none of their devices utilise the OCS infrastructure for setup of conference calls, instead they have decided to integrate legacy (credit: Paul Jones) H.323 video conferencing devices with OCS and with crisp HD video. This could be a sweet spot for many businesses that have already invested heavily in this area and wish to avoid a “rip-and-replace” approach.  For a complete deployment a range of back-end video servers are required (VC Gateway for internal integration, an ISDN gateway and a VCS Expressway for the edge of your networks or DMZ) – see illustration below.

The Polycom HDX 4000, this is signed via OCS and contact presence can be seen.

Controlled via integrated console

Exchange scheduling information

Integration with desktop MOC video conferencing

The Polycom stand

An exciting range of technology from Polycom and Tandberg, now all I need is my boss to write me a blank cheque, hmmmm….

  1. March 12th, 2010 at 05:16
    Reply | Quote | #1

    Why do you refer to H.323 as “legacy”? It is the dominant IP videoconferencing standard in the industry. I’ve seen many compare it to SIP and say it’s legacy, but those folks apparently do not know that H.323 and SIP are almost 6 months different in age.

  2. Adam
    March 12th, 2010 at 19:44
    Reply | Quote | #2

    Hi Paul, I stand corrected (updated accordingly) my point was that these were devices not normally recognised by OCS.

  3. May 19th, 2010 at 08:46
    Reply | Quote | #3

    When was the Polycom HDX 4000 series released and what does OPC stand for ?

  4. I’m a UC Blog
    May 19th, 2010 at 10:09
    Reply | Quote | #4

    It should be available today, where do you see mention of “OPC”?

  5. May 19th, 2010 at 10:28
    Reply | Quote | #5

    Oh i’m sorry i meant to say OCS !!

  6. I’m a UC Blog
    May 19th, 2010 at 11:19
    Reply | Quote | #6

    Office Communications Server, for more product information head here.

  7. May 24th, 2019 at 00:08
    Reply | Quote | #7

    Not only between Polycom and Tanderberg, I have also observed stiff competition between video conferencing players like webex, gotomeeting, R-HUB HD video conferencing servers etc.

  8. Adam [I’m a UC Blog]
    May 24th, 2019 at 14:03
    Reply | Quote | #8

    This was posted some time back, a lot has changed since then! 🙂