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Polycom Continues to Expand Australia and New Zealand Teams in line with Major Growth, and NBN

Announcement posted by Polycom 28 Feb 2011

Unified Communications leader Polycom gears up for expansion and growth with six new hires

Sydney – 28th February, 2011: Polycom, Inc. (Nasdaq: PLCM), the global leader in unified communications, has recently hired six new staff to its Australian and New Zealand (ANZ) operations to prepare for major growth in the channel, including new demand from the small to medium business (SMB) and service provider sectors.

Polycom Australia and New Zealand was a key growth market in Asia Pacific for the company in 2010, following significant investment in its operations over the last three years, which has included new offices and new hires in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Perth and Auckland.

“Locally, we are seeing strong Federal and State government initiatives being rolled out in multiple sectors, including health, education and emergency services. As the National Broadband Network (NBN) takes shape, we expect to see even greater demand for telepresence video conferencing solutions,” said Michael Chetner, Managing Director, Australia and New Zealand. “Along with these new hires we will continue to invest locally to continue our growth and ensure we support our customer and partner base.’’

Expanding on Polycom’s relationships with key strategic partners including HP, Microsoft, and IBM, James Ware comes to Polycom with extensive experience gained from working with HP in Europe where he was instrumental in driving the HP storage business and helping to engage with OEM and Channel partners.

"In 2010, we had major successes leveraging the local partners of our Polycom Open Collaboration Network vendors - Microsoft, IBM, Juniper, Avaya, BroadSoft, HP, and Siemens, as well as local Service Providers such as Telstra. We will also expand this focus with a dedicated Service Provider team to deliver on our recently announced initiatives for cloud and mobility, and with the significant growth in the SMB sector, we expect even greater opportunities in 2011,” continued Michael Chetner.

Sarah Thiess also joins Polycom as Channel Marketing Manager for ANZ. After 14 years at Microsoft where she held senior sales and marketing positions, Sarah Theiss will now lead the Polycom partner marketing strategy. This hire follows the recent launch of the new Polycom Choice Partner Programme. "We re-aligned our channel strategy and our programme efforts to acknowledge the investment that solution providers have made in Polycom, and to reflect the requirements of a Unified Communications market which Wainhouse predicts will grow 24 percent in 2011*,’’ stated Michael Chetner.

Other new channel appointments include Sally Creber as Channel Account Manager based in the Melbourne office, covering partners in Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania. Sally Creber comes from Sage Business solutions where she was responsible for managing business partners across Australia and New Zealand, as well as the Pacific Islands. William Lee also joins as Sales Engineer for New Zealand. William Lee spent 24 years at Telecom New Zealand as a Solutions Design Specialist evaluating emerging products for IP Telephony. William Lee will be part of the newly established New Zealand team based in Auckland.

In addition, Andrew Sainsbury will support the Federal Sales Team, based out of Polycom’s Canberra office. Sainsbury’s recent position was at Datacom as Communications Solutions Architect. Lucy Lai also joins as Senior Marketing Manager for ANZ, replacing Sharonika Pratap who has moved into a new regional role as Senior Regional Campaign Manager for Asia Pacific. Lucy Lai previously worked at IBM as Strategic Lead for Industry Solutions Marketing and prior to that, worked in the UK for almost nine years in IT companies such as Microsoft, COLT Telecom and BCS Global.

With the SMB market expected to grow to nearly $629.3 billion by 2014, according to a recent IDC report** and with the significant growth expected from the unified communications market, Polycom’s focus on SMB, Service Providers, and Alliance Partners will be intensified, as demonstrated by the expansion in the Australia and New Zealand teams.

*Wainhouse, ‘’Enterprise Videoconferencing Endpoints & Infrastructure Product Forecast’’, July 2010

** IDC Report – March 23 2010

About Polycom

Polycom, Inc. is a global leader in unified communications solutions with industry-leading telepresence, video, voice and infrastructure solutions built on open standards. Polycom powers smarter conversations, transforming lives and businesses worldwide. Please visit www.polycom.com.au for more information or connect with Polycom on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

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