Cisco Desk Series vs. Polycom RealPresence Immersive Studio

The Cisco Desk Series is phenomenal at joining any medium I need to, like Webex, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, or Google Meet. Its AI-powered video and audio features enhance clarity, reduce background noise, and frame participants naturally. Ideal for hybrid meetings and focused calls, it’s less suited for purely casual, non-professional use.

I find Polycom RealPresence to be useful when having one on one conversations in purpose built rooms for video conferencing. That is where the quality of the product shines. However, I dislike using Polycom Real Presence for any sort of content sharing because of the issues around resolution.If I need to share content of any kind, I prefer to use other teleconferencing solutions.

Incentivized

• So the product, you can use WebEx conferences as well as Microsoft Teams conferences. This is very good because in the past it was only built for WebEx, WebEx platforms but since a couple of months it's certificated for Microsoft Teams as well because many clients and partners have changed their collaboration platform and team Microsoft Teams is the most common platform in the business world today.

Incentivized

• Allows video conferencing with eagle eye view on the speaker
• Crystal clear audio and video with zero lagging and freezing
• Very fast connections to the conferences

Incentivized

• Training Center, Event Center, and Support Center are separate products from Webex Meetings which should be one
• Mac Outlook Plugin has some issues while syncing
• Google calendar synchronization seems to be an issue while using it as clients do have google suite on the business side

Incentivized

• Back end setup isn't very intuitive.
• Every now and then we get a delay when conferencing and using multiple features.

Incentivized

Simple, Fantastic and always improving with software upgrades

Incentivized

RoomOS is simple and intuitive to use. USB-C connectivity makes connecting to a computer a simple task

Incentivized

It is fairly easy to set up and use both for the administrator and the end user.

Incentivized

I have not had to use support yet as our use of Webex Desk Pro is so new, but all the questions that I have had have been answered with such promptness and clarity that it is clear Cisco has a passion about this device and about providing high quality in all that they do. Their support is top notch and you will never need to fear when reaching out to them.

Incentivized

We also have Zoom softphone that we use. We also have our Cisco IP communicators, which act as just a softphone of that desk phone, but we have Zoom, and we used to have Skype for Business. So those are the ones that we've dealt with in the past. I'd rather have Cisco over the other two. We already had the licenses for it, and we're already paying for it, so it's an added expense to use another company like Zoom before it was Skype for Business, now it's Teams. So we're AP for it, we have the licenses, let's use it. I like to save money. That's my motto.

Incentivized

Polycom RealPresence Immersive Studio is well established and is 10 years ahead of the current market. On doing my research I was amazed at the fact that Polycom RealPresence Immersive Studio has been trusted for years and used by astronauts, that's one feet no product can take away from Polycom RealPresence Immersive Studio as it takes on to show high quality and required support to reach that far.

Incentivized

• For team work, projects are completed sooner and you can make a profit
• Saving time and this means the possibility of more profit
• If the number of projects is large, the investment will return quickly
• The software license fee is too high

Incentivized

• Frustrated user base - issues almost every week with the systems.
• Successfully reduced travel costs - when it works. For quick one-off meetings, Polycom RealPresence makes for easy face to face communications. However, for more serious conversations, travel is preferred.
• Lack of integration into other tools. Polycom Realpresence is an entirely separate product from all of our other communications tools and does not provide an easy point of integration to hop into a video conference. As a result, using Polycom RealPresence is always a planned activity, never ad hoc.

Incentivized