Polycom updates HD strategy

Polycom yesterday issued a curious update on its high-definition video strategy. First, the news: The company announced that version 7.0.2 of the MGC bridge software now supports high definition conferences, to the tune of up to 90 simultaneous 1M bit/sec calls (1M bit/sec is the minimum needed for HD call). There are no endpoints shipping from any of the major vendors that actually can do an HD call, but Polycom execs say there are a few coming out of Asia, so they’re hedging their bets. Also, the company announced a $5,999 upgrade kit for the VSX 8000 line that will make it capable of HD calls. The upgrade kit will not ship until sometime next year though. So what’s odd about this? The company pretty much downplayed the whole HD angle while talking about the announcement, saying it’s a nice to have, but won’t grow the overall size of the market. Observers say that the company is doing HD in response to competition (newcomer LifeSize is scheduled to ship its HD endpoints later this year) rather than customer demand. One customer agrees that HD is not the next coming. “HD is a great concept, but for a company of our size, how can we afford to replace 370 video units, some with dual monitors, with HD screens?” says Stephen Callaghan, senior video architect at Bristol-Myers Squibb. Callaghan adds that while bandwidth is cheap, all his users doing 1M bit/sec HD calls is not in the realm of possibility.