Polycom, Inc., the global leader in open standards-based unified communications (UC), today announced that Ireland’s Department of Environment, Community and Local Government has selected Polycom® RealPresence® video solutions as an innovative way to enhance communication and collaboration between its staff and various agencies with which it does business. The solution will help reduce costs for a geographically dispersed Department with offices in Dublin, Ballina, Tubbercurry and Wexford. It will also provide important support in the run up to Ireland’s Presidency of the EU which commences in January 2013.
While the Department is in regular contact with the European Commission on a number of fronts, the international dimension of the Department’s work will take on particular importance before and during Ireland’s six-month Presidency of the European Council in the first half of 2013. The Department expects to see a significant increase in the demand for external video collaboration facilities during the course of the Presidency and also as they shadow the current Presidency for the six months prior to taking over.
A key requirement for the Department was the need for an easy-to-use, secure and stable video solution to visually connect staff with external stakeholders across dispersed locations. The Department also wanted an open standards-based solution, to support high-definition, face-to-face, multi-party meetings that combine video, voice, and content-sharing to improve team decision making, productivity, and efficiency. The Department decided to procure a truly unified communications solution that could be managed centrally within their recently deployed Microsoft Lync environment. They needed a simple and intuitive solution for users to make HD video calls at the touch of a button from within a familiar Microsoft environment.