December Business Bits

• Polycom, the Hacienda company best known for its tele- and video-conferencing technologies, has announced that the new, award-winning SoundStructure series, the first installed audio solutions for voice and video conferencing applications delivering truly immersive sound quality, are now available to customers in North America, Europe and parts of Asia. Polycom's SoundStructure products deliver state-of-the-art performance and audio processing capabilities for conference rooms, classrooms, customized meeting rooms, and telepresence environments.

  "We are pleased with the early recognition our industry has given the SoundStructure series," said Craig H. Richardson, vice president and general manager of installed voice solutions at Polycom. "The solutions have clear advantages for installed voice systems in any size facility. Whether used on their own or combined with Polycom's industry-leading high definition HDX video conferencing solutions, SoundStructure will provide a completely immersive collaboration experience that can't be implemented with other installed audio solutions."

• Hacienda's Bling Software, a software company that provides a platform for dynamic Web content for cell phones, is partnering with Brightstar Corp to provide mass market mobile handsets with Active Idle Screen functions such as automatically updating widgets with weather reports and other data. Under the terms of the agreement, Brightstar will embed Bling Software's Active-Idle-Screen solution directly onto the phone top, or home screen, of mass market handsets. "The Apple iPhone has compelled every major carrier to evaluate an Active-Idle-Screen strategy," says Ajit Jaokar, co-author of the best selling book Mobile Web 2.0. "Bling Software's small footprint-sized client combined with Brightstar's global reach will enable any carrier to dynamically customize their user interface and deliver mobile widget-based Web content directly to a consumer's idle screen."
• The Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department recently commended over 150 employees at Hacienda's Kaiser Permanente Pleasanton Technology Campus for their participation in Building Emergency Response Team (BERT) training. These BERT members have taken classes, attended special meetings on their own time, and participated as leaders in earthquake and fire drills en route to obtaining the decision making, organizational, and practical skills to offer immediate assistance to associates, family members, and the general public while waiting for help.
• ZANTAZ has introduced Desktop Legal Hold, the first comprehensive solution that enables corporate legal and IT departments to remotely enforce legal hold across desktops and laptops. Unlike other systems, Desktop Legal Hold does not require a continuous network connection for discovery. Information and metadata are preserved locally and continuously in real-time. The solution locks down the original files in place and can collect them when an Internet connection is established. Applying advanced conceptual and keyword legal search, all information relevant to legal matters is preserved, maintaining the audit trail and forensic credibility while dramatically reducing the legal risk of fines and sanctions associated with non-compliance to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) for eDiscovery.

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