Polycom and McAfee Alliance to Secure Unified Communications and Collaboration

Polycom, Inc. and McAfee, Inc. have announced a framework for a global strategic alliance to jointly develop and deliver Secure Unified Communications (News - Alert) and Collaboration (UCC).

The alliance has three main areas of collaboration: joint research and development, sales and market alignment, and participation in activities promoting innovation and standardization of UC security solutions.

Officials with Polycom (News - Alert) said that with security threats on the rise, the company and McAfee are taking a proactive approach to further enhance the security features of Polycom's video, telepresence and infrastructure solutions.

Company officials said that Polycom plans to design solutions that feature McAfee (News - Alert) threat protection, shielding Polycom telepresence users, from the desktop to the fully immersive suite, from potential and increasingly sophisticated security threats while making it easier to comply with privacy and confidentiality mandates.

In addition, company officials said the alliance will address a growing need for enhanced security as organizations of all sizes increasingly turn to video conferencing and telepresence to reduce costs, improve productivity, and maintain operations in the face of business disruptions.

This enhanced protection can also help IT managers in regulated industries - from healthcare to financial services - lessen the burden of meeting compliance and reporting requirements.

"Faster networks and a growing desire among enterprises to transform their work environments via telepresence have placed video collaboration at a tipping point," said Andrew Miller, president and CEO, Polycom, in a statement.

Miller said that this makes the need to provide Secure Unified Communications and Collaboration solutions an urgent one, and that's why the company partnering with McAfee.

"We're pleased to incorporate acclaimed McAfee threat protection solutions into the Polycom product line”, said Miller.

He said that the company wants to provide a secure, end-to-end environment that protects telepresence and video collaboration for the customers, which is an increasingly important component of unified communications.