Polycom, Inc., the world's leading provider of unified collaborative communications solutions, announced the expansion of its VoIP Interoperability Partner (VIP) Program for manufacturers of SIP-based call control platforms, with the addition of eight newly certified members: 3Com, Aptela, CommuniGate, Fonality, Inter-Tel, NEC Phillips Unified Solutions, pbxnsip, and TeleWare. Polycom now recognizes 19 leading VoIP platform providers as certified members, offering seamless interoperability with the award-winning line of Polycom VoIP desktop and conference phones, and giving customers a broad ecosystem of interoperable, standards-based VoIP solutions that meet a range of business needs.

"Polycom and its partners are giving customers integrated solutions that will smooth the transition to VoIP and ensure reliability and comprehensive feature support between the SIP-based call platform and the Polycom phones," said Will Stofega, research manager of VoIP services at IDC. "The Polycom VIP program provides standards-based IP PBX and softswitch vendors, who do not manufacture their own phones, a process to certify their systems interoperable with Polyco'’s VoIP phones and provide customers with a complete IP telephony solution."

The VIP program allows vendors to demonstrate, through third-party testing and certification, that their premise-based (IP PBX) or hosted (Softswitch) call control solutions are interoperable on a defined feature set with award-winning Polycom SoundPoint® IP desktop and/or SoundStation® IP conference phones and SIP software. The Program assures that customers moving from legacy PSTN phone systems to VoIP solutions featuring Polycom phones and certified manufacturers’ equipment enjoy seamless interoperability, familiar functionality that provides an easy transition to VoIP, and reliable technical support.

"As a leading independent supplier of standards-based VoIP endpoints, we appreciate the customer need to pick best-of-breed components for their VoIP solution," said Sunil Bhalla, senior vice president and general manager of voice communications at Polycom. "

The goal of the VIP program is to co-operate with leading manufacturers of VoIP equipment to test and certify interoperability between their solutions and our phones, and to give customers choice of a wide variety of fully-interoperable, standards-based, end-to-end VoIP solutions."

The Program involves rigorous interoperability testing at a Polycom-approved test facility according to a Polycom test plan. To become certified, a call control platform must demonstrate 100 percent interoperability on a Polycom-predefined critical feature set. Interoperability can also be certified for features extending beyond the critical feature set, depending upon the capabilities of a particular platform. Certification in the VIP Program is available for the entire Polycom portfolio of SoundPoint IP desktop and SoundStation IP conference phones. 

Polycom’s line of VoIP desktop and conference phones offers standards-based flexibility with renowned Polycom voice quality and clarity – including breakthrough Polycom HD Voice™ technology. The phones are upgradeable via the network and offer rich feature support through a combination of intuitive hard and soft keys with a large graphical display, making it easy for users to transition to a VoIP environment. 

The new partners join existing VIP program members including Digium, Comverse/Netcentrex Converged IP Communications, Objectworld, Pingtel, and Whaleback Systems which have all successfully passed interoperability testing and are now Polycom VIP certified. The Polycom VIP program complements existing interoperability relationships between Polycom and technology partners BroadSoft, Sphere and Sylantro; co-brand partners ADTRAN and Interactive Intelligence; and IP PBX provider Nortel for VoIP phone interoperability.

Additional information about the Polycom VoIP Interoperability Partner Program is available at www.polycom.com/vip