Polycom VS. Tandberg

[zimflux]

Which is better and why?

[mazzarak]

Hey Zimflux

talk about opening a can of worms :)

how you want to compare them? that's like saying "Which is better - Ford or Nissan?"

[zimflux]

That’s what I said... to my company...

Said company wants a breakdown of the pros and cons of T and P

What does one like and dislike about each Co.

[Entropy3XD]

You should be very happy with products from either Tandberg or Polycom. Both Poly and Tand are well made and quite easy to setup.

Questions:

In what kind of environment do you plan on using the VTC equipment?

Are you looking for a set-top unit, or do you plan on creating a large conference room with rack mounted equipment?

How many cameras do you wish to have in the room? How many need PTZ control?

What kind of network?

Do you plan on integrating other peripherals such as Doc Cams, VCR/DVD, PC, external sound system, additional mics?


If you could give us a basic idea of your environment maybe we can help you to narrow it down.

I like Polycom for set-top units or environments in which the end users are completely hopeless (because of the GUI interface).

I prefer Tandberg for custom, deployable, and military encryption environments. I like that Tandberg does not use proprietary connections, making it easier to make custom cables.

If I personally had to pick one codec of choice to fit all of my needs, no matter what the environment, it would probably be the Tandberg 2500 or 6000. The versatility is exceptional, being able to be mounted in a rack, a roll cart, or a depolyable case. They have proven amazingly solid in our depolyable units.

[Marty Marlow]

I think ENTROPY 3XD said it. it depends on who you ask. Most people will tell you the they like the one that they use. Often because they are not familiar with the other and they feel more secure with the one that they use everyday. Because they feel like they know it very well. But in most cases that will just be an opinion. The fact is both are very well built and designed products, they both codec the same algorithms voice & video. They both do the same job... polycom has a habbit of introducing new algorithms a bit more often than tanberg but depending on what kind of set up you have you may preffer one over the other. When you get into bridges that is a whole new can of worms!!!! the mgc-100 has several things over the tanberg if you do a lot of secure conferencing. But as for CODEC's They both have a good handle on technology and are always introducing something new into the mix.
bravo zulu to them Both...:)

[George]

Everyone,

I think what zimflux is saying is that he actually wants your opinions, biased or not. He needs to put together a listing of pros and cons for each so if you are a Tandberg fan, explain why you would choose Tandberg over Polycom even if it's pretty only because of your particular situation. Explaining your own situation will help zimflux to better explain the results of his findings and provide a base for him to draw up a scenario to his audience.

So if in your situation you use Tandbergs explain why, same goes if you use Polycom. The site staff will of course be monitoring this thread so be on your best behavior :). Respect everyone's opinions and let's see where this conversation goes.

George

[mazzarak]

From what I've observed from customers and on this forum, I can offer the following sweeping generalisations.

Tandberg systems break less often than Polycom.
Polycom costs less than Tandberg.

It's worth mentioning that Polycom have brought out a handful of new products in the recent weeks to challenge certain aspects of the Tandberg range that have been around for a while.

I would say I prefer Tandberg simply from the reliability point of view. When I look at the number of trouble sites we have on our helpdesk, a substantial majority are Polycom. I've never had to deal with Tandberg technical support, which I guess is revealing in itself...

[Toney]

I was a part of a team that evaluated VC systems a few years back when we looked at the 'big 3' of Polycom, PictureTel!!! and Tandberg. In the end, we selected Tandberg as the company standard. We could spend days discussing the in's and out's of why we chose Tandberg, but here are a few key points behind our decision:
1. Tandberg endpoints are far more robust that Polycom (we had eliminated PictureTel)
2. Tandberg, as a sales entity and as after-sales support are far more approachable than Polycom. From our dealings with Tandberg subsequently, we found that they were far more sensitive and responsive to customer feedback. It actually took us a few tries to make Polycom release that we were actually serious about a large rollout of VC endpoints!!
3. Tandberg standardized all their endpoint interfaces to look and work the same. This helps our end-users immensely when it comes to training.
4. Tandberg are a software company, they release a hardware platform and then upgrade them via new software releases. This means that we didn't need to go out and purchases extra boxes for new features.
5. Tandberg are rather innovative and quite aggressive with their new features releases.
6. I personally think that the Tandberg endpoint range is more versatile and covers more user scenarios.
It must be said that one point that nearly nixed the choice was their cost. Everyone knows that Tandberg are more expensive than Polycom. But in the end, and having a few years under our belts with Tandberg, we conclude that the extra money spent was greatly offset by their great reliability and the feature sets that are released regularly.

[zimflux]

Everyone,

I think what zimflux is saying is that he actually wants your opinions, biased or not. He needs to put together a listing of pros and cons for each so if you are a Tandberg fan, explain why you would choose Tandberg over Polycom even if it's pretty only because of your particular situation. Explaining your own situation will help zimflux to better explain the results of his findings and provide a base for him to draw up a scenario to his audience.

So if in your situation you use Tandbergs explain why, same goes if you use Polycom. The site staff will of course be monitoring this thread so be on your best behavior :). Respect everyone's opinions and let's see where this conversation goes.

George


Well... you said it George

We have a new install of about 45 6000s in customs rack all over the building. Now that we have all this new equipment here, we want to upgrade the rest of the buildings. I have been tasked to come up with the pros and cons of the two companies. I do understand that this is heavily based on ones experience per manufacture.

Thanks guys for all your help....

I can't wait till this site gets even bigger and bigger....

[tjm2713]

Hey Zimflux

talk about opening a can of worms :)

how you want to compare them? that's like saying "Which is better - Ford or Nissan?"
Hahaha saying that Tandberg-Polycom is like Ford-Nissan is hilarious. Try Mercedes-Nissan, Tandberg being the Mercedes of course. Video Quality and features on a Polycom don't even conpare to Tandberg. Not to mention ease of use or reliability.

[zinman]

The only thing I do not like about Tandberg is the NEED for a maintenance contract to get the latest software. With a Polycom it's free. With Tandberg, you must have a valid maintenace contract. Other than that, I think the two systems are quite comprable.

I agree that Tandberg's video is a bit better, but not to the point of swaying decisions. Most of our conferences are talking heads so the extra quality is often unnoticed.

MZ

[vtjoe]

Tandberg is trying hard to pull a head of Polycom with the new MXP product line. Looks impressive.

http://www.tandberg.net/products/tandberg_mxp.jsp

[smoody]

I agree with everyone else in believing that Tandberg gives you "more bang for your buck".

However to Zinman's point about Polycom's updates being free, this might have been true in the past but the future might be questionable. I reference the recent FX/EX/VS4000 6.x software updates - while the bug fixes were free, the H.264 & AES enhancements weren't.

Fortunately we buy 3 year service agreements with all our units that are supposed to entitle us to these updates for free, but we're having an issue with many of our serial #'s not matching our VAR's & Polycom's database (do to the fact we've had to swap out a lot of our units due to equipment malfunctions - another LONG story). Unfortunately this issue is requiring extra man hours on everyone's side to try and resolve and it's keeping us from getting our updates. Has anyone else had this problem?

[carolyn]

I can't agree with you more in regard to the serial number/coverage for Polycom systems. it seems like a never-ending battle to straighten the serial number/site location for all of our systems. Obtaining the serial numbers is bad enough on the remote siutes because you need the entire number located on the bottom of the unit while the serial number identified in the unit's software and used when reloading the software is the shortened version and not accepted. It is a royal painand time consuming keeping the log updated..(we've swapped quite a few ourselves over the past couple of years). Other than that, I find them exceptional.

[Sean Lessman]

The only thing I do not like about Tandberg is the NEED for a maintenance contract to get the latest software. With a Polycom it's free. With Tandberg, you must have a valid maintenace contract. Other than that, I think the two systems are quite comprable.
MZ

From Polycom's latest press release:

Pricing and Availability

Polycom VSX Release 7.0 software is scheduled for availability in July. All customers who have software service agreements will have access to the latest VSX software.

http://www.polycom.com/investor_relations/1,1434,pw-180-221-7355,00.html

Sean