Poly Unveils Tools for Improved Microsoft Teams Rooms

Poly on Thursday debuted a new series of Poly Room Solutions for Microsoft Teams Rooms. They include audio and video tools that deliver meeting experiences for users on Microsoft Teams. They also give IT managers the ability to scale for meeting rooms of all sizes.

Sure, Teams is mobile. But Poly says its new tools offer a true room experience.

Tim Root is Poly’s vice president and general manager of room collaboration. He says more users recognize the value of video-based collaboration while working from anywhere. And they need tools that integrate easily with cloud collaboration platforms like Teams, he said.

“Poly Room Solutions for Microsoft Teams Rooms are designed to make meetings feel natural and effortless with the highest quality in audio and video, so all participants feel like a true part of the conversation,” he said. “Poly partnered with Lenovo’s ThinkSmart team to deliver an enterprise-class compute appliance, built on Intel vPro technology, to provide a secure, reliable platform for our Poly Room Solution for Teams.”

Teams Usage Rising

Microsoft says Teams’ popularity is skyrocketing; it reports more than 75 million daily active users. That furthers the need for consistent cloud collaboration experiences across devices, Poly said.

Poly’s tools are customized to provide virtual collaboration experiences with little to no-touch control. They join the previously announced Poly Studio X family that will also offer native Teams video experiences.

Poly Room Solutions for Microsoft Teams Rooms is just the latest in Teams Rooms technology from Poly. The company said it has been working alongside Microsoft for more than 15 years and now has the most certified headset and speakerphone devices for Teams available.

“Customers look to Poly and Microsoft to deliver a seamless collaboration experience across collaboration, calling and meetings,” said Ilya Bukshteyn, Microsoft’s partner director for Teams devices. “Poly brings our joint customers a broad portfolio of devices, all delivering a consistent Microsoft Teams user experience, and enabling those users to collaborate and communicate easily, quickly and seamlessly wherever they are working.”

Last month, Poly launched a new partner program that combines the best of the old Polycom and Plantronics programs under one umbrella. The global program features a new unified portal with real-time access to all assets, training, tools and content. Plantronics acquired Polycom in 2018; the company then rebranded as Poly.