Polycom Announces Acquisition of ViVu, Inc.

Acquisition bolsters Polycom® RealPresence™ software strategy and accelerates its goal to make video collaboration ubiquitous with innovative software that can easily be embedded into web-based apps

PLEASANTON, Calif. - Oct 17, 2011 : Polycom, Inc. (Nasdaq: PLCM), the global leader in standards-based unified communications (UC), today announced the acquisition of ViVu, Inc., a privately- held video collaboration software company. ViVu has developed innovative video collaboration software that can be easily embedded into web applications such as enterprise, social, and vertical industry applications to enable instant web-based HD video collaboration. ViVu gives Polycom a fast-track to embed HD video into web-based applications through an OEM model, accelerating time-to-market and adoption of Polycom HD video collaboration solutions, and driving awareness of the Polycom brand powering video collaboration inside a wide range of applications.

Polycom's vision is to make it possible for millions of people to use video collaboration as their preferred method of communication – easily, reliably, and securely – regardless of network, carrier, protocol, application, or device. The acquisition reinforces Polycom's software strategy (announced Sept. 14th), and is expected to be a key enabler for Polycom to continue to provide customers with the highest quality and scalable video collaboration solutions across the broadest range of business, video, mobile, and social networking applications. Polycom will leverage ViVu technology in the Polycom® RealPresence™ Platform – the most comprehensive software infrastructure for universal video collaboration.

"ViVu is a compelling acquisition for Polycom as their technology provides a scalable architecture to quickly deploy rich video collaboration for a range of web-based applications for social, business, and industry-specific applications, such as those for healthcare, finance, and customer service," said Sudhakar Ramakrishna, executive vice president and general manager of UC solutions and chief development officer, Polycom.

"ViVu is excited to join Polycom as we both believe in the power of video collaboration to increase productivity and improve communications and collaboration," said Sudha Valluru, founder and CEO, ViVu. "I'm confident that ViVu's video collaboration technology will thrive and grow in the future, as a result of Polycom's leadership in UC and video collaboration, power of distribution channels, and the breadth of its customer reach within the enterprise market and beyond."

The ViVu software enables instant video collaboration in any web-based enterprise application, and is device independent. Example applications include: customer service – faster helpdesk resolution; healthcare – doctor and patient conversations via video; and finance – improved trader to client collaboration. Polycom also plans to leverage ViVu technology to accelerate embedding video collaboration into social business applications.

Founded in 2008, ViVu's corporate headquarters is based in Cupertino, Calif. ViVu video collaboration software technology is already embedded into a number of enterprise applications. A couple of examples include:

  • TIBCO – ViVu powers the HD video collaboration in TIBCO's enterprise social platform tibbr™, enabling users to collaborate in real time.
  • Thomson Reuters – ViVu powers the video collaboration inside Thomson Reuters' financial content application so financial professionals can collaborate in real time and view and discuss the latest news.

The acquisition of ViVu gives Polycom innovative and scalable software technology for web-based applications – as well as first-mover advantage – to deliver HD video collaboration for social media and vertical market applications.

This transaction was signed and closed on October 14, 2011, for undisclosed cash consideration, and Polycom expects the transaction to be neutral to earnings.

About Polycom
Polycom is the global leader in standards-based unified communications (UC) solutions for telepresence, video, and voice, powered by the Polycom RealPresence platform. The RealPresence platform interoperates with the broadest range of business, mobile and social applications and devices. More than 400,000 organizations trust Polycom solutions to collaborate and meet face to face from any location for more productive and effective engagement with colleagues, partners, customers and prospects. Polycom, together with its broad partner ecosystem, provides customers with the best TCO, scalability, and security – on-premises, hosted or cloud delivered. Visit www.polycom.com or connect with Polycom on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

This release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding Polycom's goal to make video collaboration ubiquitous, the ViVu transaction as accelerating Polycom's ability to embed HD video into web-based apps through an OEM model and the future adoption of Polycom HD video collaboration solutions, the impact of the ViVu acquisition as being a key enabler for Polycom to continue to provide the highest quality and scalable video collaboration solutions across the broadest range of applications, ViVu's video collaboration technology as continuing to thrive and grow in the future as a part of Polycom, Polycom's plans to leverage ViVu technology to accelerate embedding video collaboration into social business applications and the transaction as being neutral to future earnings. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially, including risks related to Polycom's ability to (1) successfully integrate ViVu, its products, technologies and employees into Polycom and achieve expected synergies, (2) compete successfully in this highly competitive and rapidly changing marketplace, (3) retain key ViVu employees and (4) other factors affecting the operation of the respective businesses, as well as those risks and uncertainties included under the caption "Risk Factors" in Polycom's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2011, and in other reports filed by Polycom with the SEC. Polycom disclaims any intent or obligations to update these forward-looking statements.

© 2011 Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved. POLYCOM®, the Polycom "Triangles" logo, ViVu, and the names and marks associated with Polycom's products are trademarks and/or service marks of Polycom, Inc. and are registered and/or common law marks in the United States and various other countries. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

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