Polycom Announces Acquisition of Accordent Technologies

Acquisition enhances Polycom’s UC offering with award winning customer-premise and cloud-based video content management solution

PLEASANTON and EL SEGUNDO, Calif. – 23 Mar 2011 : Polycom, Inc. (Nasdaq: PLCM), a global leader in unified communications (UC), today announced the acquisition of Accordent Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of video content management and delivery solutions, for approximately $50 million in cash.  Polycom expects this acquisition to be neutral to earnings in 2011 and slightly accretive to earnings in 2012.

The acquisition positions Polycom to become the leader in the Video Content Management and Delivery market by integrating Polycom’s leading open standards UC Intelligent Core™ and market leading UC endpoints  with Accordent’s innovative open standards video content management solution.  The Accordent solution provides capture solutions for all major video use cases, whether delivering highly scalable live webcasts from the studio, providing automated rich media webcasting from the meeting or classroom, adding a streaming extension to videoconferences or enabling user-generated content from the desktop.  According to data from market research firm Wainhouse Research, this acquisition immediately expands Polycom’s total available market by $500 million and, for this video management segment, this market is projected to generate a compounded annual growth rate of 32% through 2014 to $1.2 billion.  As a strategic partner with Microsoft, Accordent strengthens and further differentiates Polycom’s deep native integration with Microsoft Lync and Sharepoint.

“Polycom is committed to delivering an innovative, flexible and world-class video communications solution to customers over the entire content lifecycle – from real-time to capture, to management, to delivery,” said Sudhakar Ramakrishna, Polycom Chief Development Officer.  “We believe Accordent has the most elegant video content management solution on the market and by leveraging customer, channel, partner and product synergies with Polycom, this transaction positions Polycom at the forefront of end-to-end video and content management.  We welcome Accordent’s customers and employees to the Polycom team.”

“From our first meeting with Polycom, we shared a common vision about the future of unified collaboration and the paradigm shift in the way people communicate and work,” said Mike Newman, previous Accordent Chief Executive Officer.  “By integrating Accordent’s video content management solutions with Polycom’s unparalleled end-to-end video solution, we believe we can make this vision a reality as we harness the natural synergies between our two companies.”

Accordent grew to $9 million in revenues in 2010 and has over 1,200 customers in the enterprise and public sector, and through select service providers.  The staff of 50 employees will remain in Southern California and will report into Polycom’s UC research and development organization.  Accordent’s software-centric solution will become an integral element of the Polycom UC Intelligent Core and will be reported with Polycom’s Network Infrastructure revenues.

About Polycom
Polycom, Inc. (Nasdaq: PLCM) is a global leader in unified communications solutions with industry-leading  telepresence, video, voice and infrastructure solutions built on open standards.  Polycom powers smarter conversations, transforming lives and businesses worldwide. Please visit www.polycom.com for more information or connect with Polycom on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

About Accordent Technologies, Inc.
Accordent Technologies provides Enterprise Video Management solutions that enable organizations to inform, train and engage audiences online.  The Accordent Enterprise Video Management platform addresses the complete content lifecycle of all video assets regardless of source or format – from the point of Enterprise Video Capture, to viewer Portal Services, to administrative Video Content Management, to Rich Media Delivery and content expiration across disparate networks.  Accordent is an award-winning company serving the Fortune 500 and leading educational, government and healthcare organizations.

This release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the “safe harbor” provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 regarding the acquisition’s effect on Polycom’s earnings in 2011 and 2012, the expected benefits of the acquisition to Polycom and its customers, and the expected expansion of Polycom’s available market. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially, including risks related to Polycom’s ability to (1) successfully integrate Accordent, its products, technologies and employees into Polycom and achieve expected synergies, (2) compete successfully in this highly competitive and rapidly changing marketplace, (3) retain key Accordent employees and (4) other factors affecting the operation of the respective businesses, as well as those risks and uncertainties included under the caption “Risk Factors” in Polycom’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2010, and in other reports filed by Polycom with the SEC. Polycom disclaims any intent or obligations to update these forward-looking statements.

© 2011 Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved. POLYCOM®, the Polycom “Triangles” logo, Accordent and the names and marks associated with Polycom’s products are trademarks and/or service marks of Polycom, Inc. and are registered and/or common law marks in the United States and various other countries. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.