Polycom was an American multinational corporation that offered video, voice, content collaboration, and communication technology services. Plantronics acquired the company in 2018 and combined the entity to form Poly. The organization licensed an array of technologies including H.264 video codecs, session initiation protocol, native 720p, and 1080p high-definition encoding/decoding, native 1080 high-definition cameras and displays, low latency architecture, low bandwidth utilization, wideband advanced audio coding with low delay, interference filters, and multichannel spatial audio with echo cancelation. The firm was co-founded in 1990 by Brian L Hinman and Jeffrey Rodman. It was based in San Francisco, and its primary goal was to offer solutions for people to communicate by including audio to contents such as video and documents. Subsequently, Polycom unveiled audio conferencing speakerphones and later added content sharing, video conferencing, video network and bridging as well as system monitoring and management products. The company’s success came from the release of the SoundStation, a triangular speakerphone with duplex audio that allowed two parties to communicate simultaneously. As a result, the product became the leading brand in the market through the 1990s. Plantronics acquired the corporation for approximately $2.2 billion to accelerate and expand Plantronics’ vision and expand its portfolio into the Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) ecosystem. The transfer allowed Polycom to offer a premium experience regardless of the UCC solutions selected by a customer. Plantronics was consequently able to focus on voice, video, content, and cloud solutions for open work and flexible work arrangements. Polycom went public on NASDAQ in 1996.
With such a rich history, it’s no wonder the company has so many products out there, from new to used. Finding the right documentation can be difficult, especially in the English language. This is the reason why we opened up a section dedicated to Polycom User Manuals, where you can view or download each PDF.