Author - Jerry Paxton

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. – March 18, 2019 – Plantronics, Inc. (NYSE: PLT) (“Poly”), today announced that the company will transform into Poly, a technology company focused on the human experience of communications and collaboration, aiming to make communication as rich and natural as in-person.

Poly, which means “many,” leverages the legendary audio and video expertise of Plantronics and Polycom and its breadth of smart endpoints that connect across and between unified communications platforms to reduce the distractions, complexity, and distance in the modern workspace. Poly aims to be the solution of choice whenever and wherever collaboration clouds reach people.

“Today feels like my first day as CEO of a new company,” said Joe Burton, president and chief executive officer, Poly. “We see limitless opportunity for how people communicate and collaborate today. With advancements in AI, machine learning and new technologies, we see a future where Poly makes the connection, then quietly steps out of the way to become the one thing you don’t notice in the meeting.”

Poly will focus on four distinct areas of innovation:

• Making workspaces intuitively work for everyone. The modern open office has introduced distraction and noise into the work place, leading to lower productivity and employee satisfaction. Poly offers solutions today to address audible distraction in open spaces as well as technologies that make huddle rooms as powerful as traditional board rooms.
• Helping people collaborate, their way. People are now using three or more collaboration solutions in a given day and need endpoints that work with and across those solutions. Poly  offers a wide range of solutions to meet this growing need.
• Designing solutions that are mobile-first for the modern workforce. Whether it is using a personal smart phone as a “business phone” or navigating through a day where personal and business blend, workers need voice and video capabilities that move with them. Poly’s recently announced Elara 60 recognizes this is the new normal and joins Poly’s award-winning mobile headsets to give people high quality tools to be productive from anywhere.
• Advancing cloud services that help IT pros and users get more out of their devices. As the macro trend of end user empowerment continues, IT pros are more challenged to know what is being used, and where. Poly is focused on making easy-to-use solutions also easy to manage.

The Poly logo honors the company’s new path forward as well as its legacy: its lava red color and angle of letters form a propeller to reflect Plantronics 60-year aviation lineage while its three legs are inspired by the design of Polycom’s iconic conference phone.

“Our new brand represents the many elements of our history that we bring together to enable people to work the way we all work now, which is anywhere and across multiple collaboration tools,” said Amy Barzdukas, executive vice president and chief marketing officer, Poly. “No other company has as many communications devices and services that we offer across any platform of choice, and the true power will be in how we bring them together so people can do more.”

New Solutions, Demonstrated Hands-On

Starting today at Enterprise Connect 2019, Poly is unveiling new products and services to realize the company vision. Visitors to the Poly booth (#713) will have a chance to meet with executives to learn more about the new company and its latest offerings, which include:

• Polycom Studio, an easy-to-use video USB bar that upgrades huddle rooms to business class and works with services like Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Skype for Business, Google Meet, Cisco Webex, or Amazon Chime.
• Plantronics Elara 60 Series, the mobile phone station designed for the increasingly mobile-first worker and provides users with a one-touch Microsoft Teams experience.

• Eagle Eye Cube, a video conference camera with 4k sensors for crystal clear image quality as well as rich sound to upgrade meetings in small to mid-sized rooms. Eagle Eye Cube is designed to work with many existing solutions including Polycom Trio with VisualPro and Group Series.
• Blackwire 7225, an intuitive UC headset designed for concentration in open offices with a sleek, boomless design. Blackwire 7225’s active noise cancellation allows for focus so people can work, listen to music and sound professional on calls from a PC or Mac.
• The Plantronics Status Indicator, a wired presence indicator that sits on your desktop and connects with whatever communications platform you’re using to let others know if you are available, on a call or away from your desk. Visual and audio alerts sound for messages and calls.
• Plantronics headsets and Polycom phones provide end users ‘better together’ functionality, allowing basic and advanced headset features to be easily changed directly from the desk phone touch screen interface, without the need for a connected PC.
• The latest version of Plantronics Manager Pro, v3.13, that gives IT pros the confidence of knowing what devices they have, what’s working, and what’s not – and what to do about it.
• Polycom Device Management Service for Enterprises, which now supports and manages Polycom Studio as well as added API functions for better control and management of large deployments.

Poly encourages partners and customers to share what they want to see in their communications technology both at Enterprise Connect and on Poly’s social channels: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.