Polycom Drives to Extend its Video Market Leadership in Japan with Appointment of High-achieving IT&T Industry Veteran

Tokyo - 05 Apr 2010 : Polycom, Inc. (NASDAQ: PLCM), the global leader in telepresence, video and voice communications solutions, today announced the appointment of Mr. Machifumi Kashiwagi (MBA, B.Law) as Regional Director for Japan, effective immediately. Kashiwagi-san will be responsible for guiding Polycom’s business strategy in Japan, and for extending its share of key enterprise and vertical markets.

Kashiwagi-san has over 25 years of management experience in the international telecommunications and IT sector, building his career in Japan and United States with leading organisations such as NTT Communications Corporation and Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corporation. Immediately prior to joining Polycom, Kashiwagi-san was Vice President of the Network Ground Design Office in the Network Office Division at NTT Communications.

"Japan is one of Polycom's largest video markets globally," said Mr. Hansjoerg Wagner, Vice President and Managing Director of Polycom Asia Pacific.  "Despite the global economic downturn, Polycom's business in Japan has continued to achieve unprecedented growth because organisations here recognise the significant productivity and efficiency benefits achieved by using HD video and telepresence solutions to conduct face-to-face meetings – rather than travelling to a single location to meet."

Mr. Wagner added: "The Japan market is very strategic for our company, which is why we have invested heavily to significantly increase our sales and services headcount over recent months."

Commenting on Kashiwagi-san's appointment, Mr. Wagner noted:  "Kashiwagi-san's breadth and depth of experience in the telecommunications and IT sectors makes him the ideal high-performance leader to continue growing this important market for Polycom.  I am confident that Kashiwagi-san's extensive experience working with customers in a host of industries, together with his strong communication skills and strategic approach, will further increase Polycom's leadership of the visual communications market in Japan – particularly the fast-growing immersive telepresence sector."

Kashiwagi-san said, "I'm extremely honoured to be joining Polycom at this time.  Industry analysts forecast strong growth for the visual communications market in Japan, and Polycom is particularly well-positioned to take advantage of this market opportunity because it is the video partner of choice for key service providers and the leading Unified Communications (UC) vendors, including Microsoft, HP, IBM and Avaya.

"Moreover, Polycom's Open Collaboration Network strategy to provide open and interoperable collaboration solutions that natively integrate with multiple UC platforms gives Japanese customers the flexibility to choose a best-of-breed solution – rather than being locked into a single-vendor platform – and this presents another exciting opportunity for our business going forward."

About Polycom
Polycom, Inc. (Nasdaq: PLCM) is the global leader in telepresence, video, and voice solutions and a visionary in communications that empower people to connect and collaborate everywhere. Please visit http://www.polycom.asia for more information and follow us on Twitter @PolycomAlert.

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