Unified communications firm
Polycom announced the acquisition of ViVu, a privately held video collaboration
software company. ViVu has developed video collaboration software that can be
embedded into enterprise, social and vertical industry applications to enable
Web-based high-definition video collaboration. The acquisition gives Polycom a
means to more quickly embed HD video into Web-based applications through an OEM
model, which will accelerate time-to-market and adoption of Polycom HD video
collaboration solutions.
The acquisition reinforces
Polycom’s software strategy and is expected to be an important enabler for
Polycom to continue to provide businesses with scalable video collaboration solutions
across a range of business, video, mobile and social networking applications.
Polycom will leverage ViVu technology in the Polycom RealPresence Platform,
their software infrastructure for universal video collaboration.
“ViVu is a compelling acquisition
for Polycom as their technology provides a scalable architecture to quickly
deploy rich video collaboration for a range of Web-based applications for
social, business, and industry-specific applications, such as those for health care,
finance and customer service,” said Sudhakar Ramakrishna, executive vice
president and general manager of UC solutions and chief development officer for
Polycom.
ViVu, which was founded in
2008, is based in Cupertino, Calif. Its video collaboration software technology
is embedded into a number of enterprise applications. Its customers include
Tiboc and Thomson Reuters. ViVu powers the HD video collaboration in Tiboc’s
enterprise social platform tibbr, enabling users to collaborate in real time; ViVu
also powers the video collaboration inside Thomson Reuters’ financial content
application so financial professionals can collaborate in real time, and view
and discuss the latest news.
"ViVu is excited to
join Polycom, as we both believe in the power of video collaboration to
increase productivity and improve communications and collaboration,” said Sudha
Valluru, founder and CEO of ViVu. “I’m confident that ViVu’s video
collaboration technology will thrive and grow in the future, as a result of
Polycom’s leadership in UC and video collaboration, power of distribution
channels, and the breadth of its customer reach within the enterprise market
and beyond.”