Tech Focus
Videoconferencing with Polycom CMA 5000
CRN Test Center takes a look at Polycom’s videoconferencing solution, which includes the software, packaged in a rackable server, with several hundred desktop licenses
By Edward F Moltzen
Companies don't just stumble into solid double-digit growth. But in 2008, that's just the number that Polycom hit with its performance in delivering videoconferencing (VC) solutions throughout the world.
The company topped $1 billion in annual sales for the first time.
A profit app
In the CRN Test Center, we've come to view VC—like some companies—as a good way to deploy technology to attain immediate cost savings in an enterprise. Travel and expense costs throughout business continue to be a target of CEOs and CFOs as they look to make their way through the current economic slump. VC, if deployed correctly and at the right level of scalability and complexity, can be a nice way to continue face-to-face business inside a company without the worry of airfare, hotel and meal costs climbing.
But the key really is "if deployed correctly and at the right level of scalability and complexity." Delivering a solution that's too complex can eat away at those T&E savings with lost productivity. Delivering a VC package that's not robust can also have that impact, not to mention frustrating a business' workforce.
Testing claims
The Test Center took a look at the Polycom CMA 5000 solution, which includes the company's VC software, packaged in a rackable server, with several hundred desktop licenses. (Starting system availability is 200 seats for $21,000 and scales up to 5,000 seats.)
We worked with a Polycom engineer to get the solution up and running quickly (we had a fast turnaround time on our loaner unit for the evaluation.) Altogether, deployment took a little less than an hour.
While the CMA 5000 solution may seem costly, our evaluation—which included setup, deployment and testing—finds it has the potential to significantly drive down travel costs throughout an enterprise.
Video, audio, text, IM, presence indication, whiteboarding are all included; unlike free applications like Skype, administrators can set organizational rules and structure to layer C-level executives from the rest of the company, provide different levels of access to different employees, manage security policies and quickly add and subtract users.
On the desktop, a feature that is easily likable is the presence awareness function built into what closely resembles any typical IM client.
Some minor security policy tweaking is needed for clients that are running Vista Business or Ultimate, and it won't work with Vista Home editions. (Working through that support issue ate up about 20 minutes of time to get it installed and running.) Beyond that, we liked this solution and can recommend it—especially for organizations that need to clamp down on their budgets. Some key points include:
- CMA 5000 supports a number of different standards, including H.323, LDAP/H.350, XMPP, HTTS:/ XML provisioning and AES—Media encryption
- Licensing for the solution scales from 500 to 5,000 seats, providing headroom for many midsize businesses
- As an appliance (what we saw was packaged into an industry-standard Dell server), it's a 1U, rack-mountable box that slides easily into a data center
- On the client side, it supports a variety of Web cams, including those by Microsoft and Logitech
From an administration point of view, file and print and Exchange permissions should have no problem managing CMA 5000.
From a client point of view, managing the instant messaging, presence awareness and VC capabilities is almost as simple as using an AOL Instant Messenger or scheduling a meeting in Microsoft's Outlook.
The bottom line
Asking any organization to make a $21,000 investment in technology isn't necessarily the easiest task in any economic environment, let alone the current one. But for midsize companies used to an IM culture, and looking to gain productivity while cutting travel expenses, Polycom's CMA 5000 can do the trick. |