Polycom Makes Play on Generic TabletPolycom Makes Play on Generic Tablet

Deal with Samsung will put Polycom video applications on generic Android-based tablets.

Avaya, Cisco and RIM have dominated the tablet news so far, but an announcement from Polycom today is much more what the industry needs in this area.

Polycom announced an agreement with Samsung to "develop standards-based video applications to be embedded and distributed on the Android-based Samsung GALAXY Tab." The move represents a fundamentally different strategy than that taken by the aforementioned trio of communications vendors, who are all offering only proprietary applications on proprietary devices--though the three above-mentioned vendors are widely expected to release their UC apps for general-purpose tablets including the iPad.

Polycom appears to have beaten them to the punch, however, at least in making the announcement; the companies didn't announce when the Polycom tablet apps actually will roll out. Avaya's Desktop Video device with the Flare Experience GUI is available now, while Cisco's Cius is due out late this year, and RIM's PlayBook tablet is expected early next year.

The larger issue here is whether the communications platform vendors are really willing to commit to being the software vendors they say they want to be, and let loose their death grip on proprietary endpoint hardware. They've been unwilling to do that in the desk telephone set market, even though the SIP standard supposedly was going to commoditize the desktop. It'll be much harder for them to resist selling their software on general-purpose tablet hardware, especially since that's where essentially the entire market is starting out.

In making the announcement, Sudhakar Ramakrishna, Polycom's general manager of UC Products and chief development officer, said: