Samsung Galaxy Tab gets an enterprise assist from Polycom
The biggest surprise with the Apple iPad has been how quickly the enterprise has warmed up to it. One of the iPad's newest competitors, the Samsung Galaxy Tab, is an Android tablet that has mostly been portrayed as a consumer tablet for surfing web pages, reading e-books, and watching movies.
However, on Tuesday the Galaxy Tab got a shot in the arm for enterprise adoption when Samsung announced a partnership with Polycom to embed Polycom's voice and video communications technology into the Galaxy Tab. It will be implemented as a Polycom app that will allow the Galaxy Tab to connect to the Polycom video conferencing systems that are widespread across many big companies. The app will also connect to other third party telepresence and video conferencing platforms that use industry standard protocols.
Sudhakar Ramakrishna, general manager of unified communications products at Polycom, said, "Unlike other mobile video applications, we believe the Polycom application will drive a network effect for users and businesses by enabling the Samsung Galaxy Tab to connect with each other, as well as other standards-based telepresence and video conferencing systems and applications."
Polycom's official statement offered additional details about how this will be implemented:
Leveraging Polycom's leadership in video communications and UC solutions, the application for Samsung devices will deliver low-latency, high-resolution video experiences and network resiliency. It will combine a directory and chat capability allowing Samsung mobile device users to easily find each other and connect. Polycom's H.264 Scalable Video Coding (SVC) initiative, also announced today, will be critical component of Polycom's mobile video strategy.
Dr. Hosoo Lee, executive vice president at Samsung said, "We are partnering with Polycom due to its unparalleled HD video and voice quality, to bring a best-in-class, standards-based video communications experience to a wide range of UC applications and devices, including the new Samsung Galaxy tablets and Samsung smartphones."
Lee's statement makes it clear that we should expect to see Polycom video conferencing software embedded in other Samsung products beyond just the Galaxy Tab. While Lee didn't specify products, the most exciting possibilities are Samsung LED TVs and the Samsung Galaxy S line of Android phones.
This article was originally published by TechRepublic.