Johannesburg, 23 Aug 2019
Today’s CTOs and CIOs are flooded with a variety of collaboration platforms, each with their strong points. In deciding which platform to use, two items should be strongly considered: return on investment and agility.
Return on investment
ROI is linked to how quickly and easily the platform you have installed can be made a daily tool for users and integrate into their daily workplace lives.
Agility
With the multiple challenges that are presented to enterprises daily, the demand for agile solutions is ever-increasing. Enterprises need to be able to change integrations, add components, change architectures and adjust processes both quickly and efficiently.
In terms of user adoption, it's really the basics that drive this. How do I schedule a meeting? How do I invite people to my conference? How easy is it for them to join my conference and collaborate? How do I connect to someone else’s conference? It’s not a technical fight, it’s about what is easiest for enterprises to use, what gives the best experience.
Users are already used to the Microsoft workflows in collaboration through the successful journeys of Skype for Business and Teams. It’s a workflow that is easy to learn, easy to use and is rapidly adopted in enterprise. It takes the complications out of remembering conference codes and special dial strings. But, Skype for Business and Teams that use proprietary AV codecs, getting a traditional H323/SIP room system into a Skype for Business or Teams meeting, or joining a different collaboration solution, has been a challenge.
How do we utilise the simplicity of click-to-join in the Microsoft environment, in a room system?
The answer is Polycom’s RealConnect service. RealConnect is a simple workflow that enables your room system to connect to a meeting with a simple click-to-join button, and your desktop users to connect with a click-to-join from their soft clients. Simple, one button and everyone is collaborating.
RealConnect can be delivered to the enterprise via two methods: An on-premises solution or hosted solution using Polycom RealPresence Clariti, or a pure cloud service known as Polycom RealConnect for O365.
Microsoft Teams, the next collaboration tool by Microsoft, has stormed the market. It’s clear that Microsoft is pushing this platform hard, by announcing the retirement of Skype for Business Online, which is scheduled for 31 July 2021. But, how do we cater for an enterprise that has Skype for Business or Microsoft Teams and needs to connect to external participants? How do we provide agility and scalability as well?
The answer is fairly simple: Polycom’s RealPresence Clariti
This software as a service solution is licensed-based and includes all the pieces of Polycom’s infrastructure puzzle. Polycom RealPresence Clariti provides integration options for both Skype for Business and Teams and makes use of the easy-to-use RealConnect workflow (click-to-join).
Polycom has recently released the RealConnect for Clariti for Teams Solution option, a solution certified by Microsoft, which allows all existing Clariti customers to have Teams interoperability for their traditional room systems. This is a win in today’s tough times where customers are sweating assets and pushing the envelopes. No need to throw out your existing room solutions and purchase dedicated hardware for Skype for Business or Teams. Coupling the standards-based communications that Polycom utilises, customers can integrate into multiple platforms and then into Teams and Skype for Business, without locking you in to a collaboration platform. Connect into Teams, Skype for Business, Zoom, BlueJeans, Pexip, Cisco and pretty much any platform you like.
Scalability of Polycom’s RealPresence Clariti is easily achieved via an easy-to-understand licensing model and simple, purposeful architecture. Agility is achieved by having all licensing available to you from the start. Need to tenant your environment? Deploy redundancy? Use least cost routing? It’s all included.
The Polycom RealPresence Clariti offering facilitates and manages your calls from your environment into other collaboration platforms via unified dial plans, endpoint management and firewall traversal. It offers a full conference service with scheduling, conference rooms, network management, resource management, provisioning services and multiple interop and integration solutions. It’s the most flexible investment you could ever make.
Who am I? Why am I so confident in this solution?
My name is Gary Skinner. I am a Senior Technical Architect at Kathea and one of the highest-rated Polycom Architects in South Africa and its surrounding regions. I have been working as a specialist engineer on Polycom Infrastructure for the past five years, and in that time, I have obtained a multitude of internationally accredited certifications and completed countless successful deployments.
If you need assistance in realising your potential return on investment or expanding and optimising on your current estate, then let’s grab a coffee and chat.
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