Polycom RealPresence Video Solutions and Microsoft Lync Unify Video, Voice and Data Communications to Help Leading Pharmaceutical Company Lonza Expand

Polycom, Inc. the global leader in open standards-based unified communications and collaboration (UC&C), today announced that Lonza, one of the world's leading suppliers to the pharmaceutical, healthcare and life science industries, is using a combination of Microsoft Lync Server 2010 and Polycom RealPresence video solutions, implemented by Polycom service provider partner Orange Business Services, to provide an end-to-end unified communications and collaboration solution to over 11,000 staff across 90 sites around the world. Lonza employees, who are based in multiple locations and involved in a wide range of chemical and biological active pharmaceutical projects from research to final product manufacture, can now securely communicate via video, voice, instant messaging, and presence no matter where team members are located.

Lonza has also extended their video collaboration to include Polycom RealPresence Immersive video suites (Polycom OTX series) and Polycom RealPresence Room video solutions (Polycom HDX 8000 systems), all powered by the Polycom RealPresence Platform - interoperable and comprehensive UC&C software infrastructure for universal video collaboration. The RealPresence Platform delivers a highly personalized experience to every user, where staff can click a name on their Lync contact list and instantly connect and collaborate together, face-to-face via Polycom video on their desktop or in a conference room-based system to bring people together in high definition.

"We chose Polycom primarily for their experience and reputation; secondly, the interoperability with other systems; and thirdly because of the strength of its strategic relationship and commitment to integrate with Microsoft Lync," said Ernst Hutter, Head of Global IT Infrastructure, Lonza. "The combination of Microsoft Lync and Polycom video collaboration has significantly changed our way of working in the last two years. We have more and more home users and this has allowed the organization to implement a more flexible working environment, so employees can work more effectively away from the office and securely join video meetings from home or on the move."

Video Bridges the Distance among Global Locations for the Lowest TCO

Dispersed over many different business groups and locations, Lonza has seen global collaboration increase through the use of high-definition multi-party video conferences, enabling teams to gather information together and collaborate on documents live over video. One of initial driving forces behind Lonza utilizing video collaboration was to reduce its travelling costs, but after a while they Discovered another important aspect, it saves time and makes the team more productive. They found that conducting meetings over video avoided the time taken to plan for a meeting involving travel. The use of video conferencing bridges the distances between global locations to cross both language and cultural barriers as video collaboration has become central to the way Lonza does business and the travel desk now encourages employees to use video instead of travelling to meetings.