Polycom offers enterprise a full table video-conferencing solution

Polycom (Nasdaq: PLCM) this week, joined ShoreTel (Nasdaq: SHOR), Vidyo and Radvision (Nasdaq: RVSN) in rolling out a videoconferencing solution for iOS devices, unveiling RealPresence Mobile, which it calls the first enterprise-class HD mobile video solution for tablets.

Polycom's enterprise-level video-conferencing solution, is RealPresenceMobile.

RealPresence Mobile links the Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPad 2, Motorola Xoom and Samsung Galaxy Tab tablets to other tablets and to desktop and immersive video room systems within the enterprise; the software was rolled out this week and is available in the App Store and the Android Market.

"We want to enable our customer to be able to deploy across multiple platforms; we want them to have an easy choice as to what they want to use," Jim Kruger, SVP of global solution marketing told FierceEnterpriseCommunications. "Having so many devices, the BYOD trend, has really made it difficult for IT departments. In many cases, they've tried to keep them at bay and not support them. This solution eliminates that problem; it allows them to manage and deploy via software."

Kruger said customers are looking to embrace mobility and tablets, which, he said, have a significant impact on business productivity.

It's a market that the company believes will see explosive growth in the short and long-term.

"The market driver is demand for mobility, and the key is tablets," he said. "The quality of the cameras, the processing power [and] the larger displays make tablets effective multipoint devices. They handle content and desktops; they make it easy to collaborate and connect into meetings."

Gartner predicts some 900 million tablets will be shipped by 2015, with upward of 320 units shipped in 2015 alone. GigaOm Pro, meanwhile, said videoconferencing participation is expected to grow 14-fold to more than 140 million units over the same time frame.

The tablet, said Kruger, is a natural video conferencing endpoint, and it's proven remarkably popular. Eleven percent of information workers are using tablets to do their jobs, even though the tablet is just a year old.

"For a lot of people on the consumer side, tablets have become the device of choice," he said. "As enterprise continues to adopt them, we want to be sure we have a fully interoperable solution to offer."

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