Polycom recently announced a potentially lucrative partnership that sees their video communications solutions teamed up with Microsoft’s unified communications (UC) solutions such as Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Exchange.

As Polycom Senior Vice President put it, “Polycom and Microsoft are aligned in making people more productive and helping organisations become more efficient and competitive through improved communication and collaboration.”

“Polycom’s integrated solution for Microsoft unified communications environments puts [video conferencing] within the familiar Microsoft applications that millions of people use every day.”

Polycom and Microsoft are definitely leading names in the fields of video conferencing and desktop time and information management respectively and this deal could see both names be carried over into the others domain.

A complete line of Polycom VoIP phones, designed specifically to work with Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, is to be launched later this year.

With Polycom Conferencing for Outlook, users can incorporate desktop video conferencing into their meetings and allow invited participants to join links inserted into the meeting invitation notification. A variety of video devices can be used including the Polycom HDX 4000, or room-based video conferencing systems like the Polycom HDX 8000 Series.

In addition, Polycom’s flexible platforms allow people to join video-enabled meetings by phone.

Polycom have stated that the enhanced solutions are planned to be launched in the second quarter of 2010.

Full press release here.