Polycom Boosts Microsoft Lync-Related Revenues by 135 Percent

Polycom, which has a strategic partnership with Microsoft around the Lync unified communication product, saw its Lync-related revenues increase by 135 percent in 2011 compared to the year before.

Company executives shared the figure this week while discussing quarterly and year-end earnings with financial analysts. Overall, Polycom reported fourth quarter revenues of $407 million, up 20 percent from the year-ago period, and net income of $50 million, up 52 percent. For the full year, revenues were $1.5 billion, with net income of $136 million.

While Polycom officials attributed growth to several key partnerships, including those with IBM, HP, Apple and Lenovo, CFO Mike Kourey called out Microsoft as "a real highlight."

According to a transcript by Seeking Alpha, President and CEO Andy Miller said, "The opportunity to leverage these key relationships is proving to be significant as evidenced, for instance, by our success and growth through innovation and go-to-market alignment with Microsoft Lync. In fact, in 2011 we grew the revenues generated through our partnership with Microsoft by approximately 135 percent over 2010 levels."

"We believe this is driven through our integration of Lync functionality with Polycom's RealPresence platform and Lync-integrated video systems and desktop devices, coupled with the fast adoption of Lync worldwide," Miller said.

He went on to say that Lync adoption is picking up, reinforcing recent statements by Microsoft executives about Lync momentum and about the partner opportunity with the product.

"I think the trajectory of Microsoft Lync has evolved now to a point where we're moving from the early adopters and the pilot stages to real deployments, and of size as well," Miller said.

For its part, Polycom seems to be looking to current Microsoft partners to join its channel program and help the company drive its Lync-based solutions further into the market.

In talking to the analysts about priorities for newly hired president of North America sales David Ruggiero, Miller specifically called out the channel. "[Ruggiero has] hired vice presidents for the northeast, south, central, and west regions. In addition, we are continuing our focus on our channel strategy and channel fulfillment with a new vice president of North America channels."

Miller was referring to Dan Sibille, whose appointment as vice president of North America Channels was announced on Nov. 14. Miller reports to Ruggiero and also aligns with Ron Myers, Polycom's senior vice president of Worldwide Channels. Polycom has about 7,000 partners worldwide.

Posted by Scott Bekker on January 25, 2012