In this Executive Insights videocast, BCStrategies’ Jim Burton is joined by Poly CEO Joe Burton for more announcements from the new company.
In this Executive Insights videocast, BCStrategies’ Jim Burton is joined by Joe Burton, CEO of Plantronics and Polycom.
Poly (formerly Plantronics and Polycom), a global communications company that powers meaningful human connection and collaboration, today announced the appointment of Carl Wiese as executive vice president, chief revenue officer, global head of sales, effective immediately. Wiese brings more than 30 years of experience in sales, marketing, services, and product management for enterprise technology leaders.
Recently I predicted that Siris Capital would be the winner in the contest to secure Polycom: Polycom and Mitel is doomed - Enter Siris Capital
Today it seems I was proven right: Siris Capital to purchase Polycom for $2Bn
Combines global technology leaders to create a complete communications and collaboration portfolio and an enhanced ability to deliver profitable growth
Last week there was a 15 percent fall in Polycom shares as prices dropped to $9.49, eliminating $273 million in market capitalization; this comes as a result of the unexpected resignation of President and CEO Andrew Miller.
"Irregularities" had been discovered in Miller's expense reports, and the company stated that Miller took responsibility for this. Bridge Growth Partners has been a Polycom board member since 2005, and the managing principal at that company, Kevin Parker, is acting as its interim chief executive officer.
Analyst reports on the "videoconferencing market" misrepresent the global opportunity for video sales into the enterprise claims VQ's business development director, Giles Adams (@GilesAdamsVQ).
Video communications has been spreading from the boardroom through conference rooms to the desktop over the past several years. But why stop there? 2013 is the year of video everywhere, just take a look here at in the Enterprise Connect exhibit hall. For the first time Vidtel and Blue Jeans have (adjacent) booths on the show floor. These companies have shown that video network infrastructure can be more economically delivered via the cloud (and software) and are replacing traditional hardware-based infrastructure.
The well-known Microsoft Gold partner, Sentri, is set to be acquired by Polycom. It is expected that this move will broaden the possibilities of what can be offered for partner-centric services, particularly to those Polycom-Microsoft Lync distributions.
The specific fiscal details of the transaction have not been made available, however, Polycom commented that the deal, set to close by the end of Q1 2013, will be under $10 million.
As the prediction season winds down, there's another prognosticator who deserves attention: Elliot Gold of Telespan. This is the 18th consecutive year that Mr. Gold has cast conferencing predictions, and according to his own analysis, his accuracy rate is 75 percent (127 correct out of 170).
Last week, he offered his 10 predictions for 2013 and then reviewed his forecasts from last year. The webinar and more information is available at his site telespan.com.