Polycom said its Polycom UC Intelligent Core will soon be interoperable with other vendors' UC solutions, including rival Cisco's TelePresence Interoperability Protocol (TIP). The company said the direction is part of its commitment to its UCEverywhere strategy and in response to the clamor from its customers.

"Cisco customers have told us for years that they've been imprisoned by a closed telepresence platform that builds a wall around their UC environment and keeps out non-Cisco users. Today, all that changes," said Andrew Miller, CEO, Polycom.

With interoperability, organisations can expand their UC capabilities using their existing solutions, thus, reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO) by up to millions of dollars in the first year of operations alone. Polycom said its interoperability solution will be available this second quarter.

Polycom cited the case of Motorola Mobility, which has deployed Polycom's telepresence solution. Walter F. Oswald, Corporate Vice President and CIO, Motorola Mobility, said that with the new interoperability software that Polycom will release, it will allow Motorola to collaborate with its business-to-business partners using Cisco TelePresence.