Making "Polycom RealPresence CloudAXIS Suite" Social with IBM Connections

Room videoconferencing has been around for years, of course, but until now it hasn't been applied on a wide scale to social networking. Imagine an easy integration between Social Networking platform leader like IBM and Polycom Video Conferencing Solutions… To drive user adoption, video needs to be contextually integrated within Business Process or applications.

Last year, IBM has introduced a tech preview: IBM Sametime Video Chat Widget. It provides an easy way to associate a Sametime audio/video session with an IBM Connections Community page. I have extended that integration via Polycom technology to provide multipoint video conferencing in continuous presence mode (here). But, some clients haven’t deployed IBM Sametime or their Sametime server is not integrated with their IBM Connections platform.

Polycom has just delivered a new solution in its portfolio: Polycom RealPresence CloudAXIS Suite. With a browser and web camera on a PC, smartphone, or a tablet, Polycom RealPresence CloudAXIS Suite extends web video collaboration to anyone.

This solution provides, via a set of REST APIs, all features to design the same kind of integration as the Sametime Video Chat Widget.

I have developed a prototype to illustrate this use case.  Let’s suppose that there is a team of newly hired employees who join a new-hire community to share their common knowledge and successes to become productive, faster.  Or the community could be a group of developers who are Java experts who are sharing design tips. Or a virtual help desk community.  

In this prototype, any member of a community can attend a video collaboration session.  If no “Video Collaboration meeting” is in progress, one community member can start it, then all member will be able to see that and can join the meeting in progress via a single click. Audio and video can be automatically started for each person as soon as they enter the room.

Polycom RealPresence CloudAXIS Suite extends secure enterprise-grade Polycom video collaboration to anyone with a browser and web camera. Embedding it in business process through a seamless integration will allows you to drive Social & video adoption.