Polycom today announced the next step in its promised rollout of conferencing services compatible with IP multi-media subsystem architecture, announcing the Proxias application server, a SIP-based system that is built to enable service providers to offer rich-media conferencing on a global, unified communications basis.

The announcement is the latest in a series that included the late-2006 announcement of Polycom’s IMS strategy and the February 2007 debut of its Polycom RMX 2000real-time media conferencing platform. Along with the Proxias application server, Polycom is announcing a conferencing application development environment that will enable both Polycom and third parties – whether service providers themselves or other software developers – to add applications. And it is announcing ReadyVoice, the audio conferencing capability for the system.

Polycom will be adding an on-demand video conferencing product as well, said James Brennan, director of product management.

“We will have all the elements of an end-to-end solution,” he said, including Polycom’s existing InnoVox 4000IP media server, and both voice and video conferencing systems widely deployed in enterprises globally. The goal is to enable service providers to integrate conferencing into an IMS architecture and to deliver new services such as on-demand video conferences in a way that is easy for customers to use, he said.

“Service providers want to offer very scalable, very reliable video conferencing product at well,” Brennan said. “They can provide this to customers based on a single conferencing account so that users won’t have to think about whether it is audio or video. They will be using the same conferencing protocol, the same call-in number, the same prompts, and the system will automatically know whether I am dialing in on audio or video end point and deliver it to appropriate media server.”

In addition, end-points will be centrally managed, versus congregated in islands or deployment, to insure services stay in place if a single node fails.

Polycom is bringing its conferencing experience to the IMS world to extend its reach with its core market, Brennan said.

“We have focused on is multi-party rich media collaboration,” he said. “A number of companies are putting out general purpose media servers and applications servers. The technology is very good, and we’ve looked at core designs. Our products look similar but we’ve taken it one step further. Multiparty rich media collaboration has many complex problems that are more difficult to solve. These are high-value, high-charge services – the sheer usage technically complex. For example, on Monday morning at 9 a.m., our largest service providers get tens of thousands of calls within a few minutes.”

Polycom believes it is important to have IMS-compliant products now – even if IMS architectures are fully deployed for three to five years – so that service providers can offer conferencing services today on a platform that will fit into its IMS plans as they evolve, he added.

Polycom has taken the general designs and optimized them for the collaboration space, he said, to make it easy to operate and maintain those systems.

“We want to make sure the investment our customers make in our platforms provides the maximum revenue,” Brennan said. “Our systems drive more minutes on the same number of ports to utilize the network more efficiently. That is especially important with high-quality video to deliver the same experience with less bandwidth.”