Polycom brings Microsoft Teams and Alexa to ‘conference smartphone’

Polycom has announced new capabilities with key partners Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Zoom and BlueJeans.

Polycom's 'smartphone for the conference room', the Polycom Trio, is the fastest selling conference phone in the company's history.

The device will now support Microsoft Teams for meetings and calling through the Teams app for phones.

Supporting Teams is the latest collaboration between the two companies whose relationship has spanned nearly 15 years and covers voice endpoints, video endpoints, and video interoperability.

Polycom has also collaborated with AWS, introducing integration with Alexa for Business aiming to bring natural language processing to conference rooms using Alexa Voice Services (AVS).

Customers will be able to access all the features of Amazon Alexa from the Trio without the need to deploy additional hardware.

Zoom is the first video communications provider to embed its software into Polycom Trio.

This experience enables the device to act as the all-in-one speakerphone and controller for the software-based video conference room system, Zoom Rooms.

The Trio is additionally now certified to work with BlueJeans' new meetings platform.

"The excitement and adoption of Polycom Trio among our customers and partners have been tremendous, and we see this momentum increasing as Polycom solutions make meetings more productive and enjoyable for employees," says Polycom CEO Mary McDowell.

"As we expand our relationships with Microsoft, Amazon, Zoom and BlueJeans, Polycom Trio gives customers the best collaboration and productivity experience on any platform.

The device and its new offerings will be on display at the Polycom booth during Connect 2018.

Polycom Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Korea VP Tony Simonsen adds, "Within Australia and New Zealand, Polycom Trio's ability to work with existing eco-systems while also being enabled for new platforms like Microsoft Teams and Amazon Alexa makes it extremely attractive for customers wanting cost-effective ways to address their digital transformation needs."

"Take MYOB, a leading provider of business management solutions and accounting software as one example. They chose Polycom Trio to create a more agile meeting environment for employees regardless of location. Trio has enabled them to deliver HD content sharing and live video interaction into spaces where it wasn't available before."