18 May 2009

HILLSIDE, N.J. and PLEASANTON, Calif. - May 18, 2009 : Glowpoint, Inc. (OTCBB: GLOW), a leading provider of advanced video communications solutions, today announced the ability to provide business-to-business (B2B) telepresence and video calling capabilities across carrier networks for customers using Polycom, Inc. (Nasdaq: PLCM) immersive, room and personal telepresence solutions and video conferencing systems. Powered by Polycom's industry-leading visual communication infrastructure, Glowpoint's Telepresence interExchange Network (TEN) allows organizations, using Polycom standards-based telepresence and video conferencing systems, to leverage network and video managed services provided by their existing carrier partners to easily and securely connect with their customers, partners and vendors on other carrier networks.

"B2B collaboration represents the next significant step for telepresence and video conferencing. Enabling inter-business video communications will open the floodgates for new applications and create greater value for customer investments in both video equipment and services," said Wu Zhou, senior research analyst, Network Consulting and Integration Services, IDC. "The ability to easily connect the Polycom systems across carrier networks will help customers realize the 'network effect' benefits of extended collaboration among their business ecosystem."

TEN supports the 'network effect' benefits described in Metcalfe's Law, which proposes that the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of compatible endpoints (or nodes) connected on the network. By allowing telepresence users to call across carrier networks, as well as connect to standards-based telepresence and video conferencing systems, the exchange provides and supports a large ecosystem with easy, secure calling capabilities between organizations.

"Establishing secure and reliable video connectivity between our faculty and the students participating in our Flex Mode MBA program presented a challenge," said Susan Rostek, associate director-distance education at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business. "The communications technology and service provided by TEN has been a great solution. We've now implemented a unique method of delivering our graduate-level courses to business-classrooms across the continent."

"Providing options for B2B telepresence capabilities across carrier networks is what our customers are seeking, and further highlights the importance of industry standards being utilized, as the global telepresence and video conferencing ecosystem includes systems from various vendors," said Joe Sigrist, senior vice president and general manager of video solutions at Polycom. "Facilitating easy, secure communication among telepresence and video conferencing users will help grow the adoption of visual communication, which will benefit the entire industry through greater demand for solutions and services. Glowpoint's TEN enables us to offer this to our customers, and since it is offered independent of managed services, it becomes highly attractive for other service providers to join in order to enhance the customer value and benefit of existing video service offerings."

One of Polycom's platinum certified partners, IVCi LLC, has been connected to TEN since its launch. "One of the many reasons customers choose IVCi's IntelliNet video managed service is that they can leverage the unrivaled B2B capabilities enabled through the TEN exchange to collaborate with their customers and partners," said Chris B?ttger, senior vice president at IVCi. "There are already over 6,000 video systems connected to the exchange and our customers have the option to connect to what is one of the largest video exchanges in production today. The key is that we can control the security aspect so that rooms that customers do not want to be publically available are secured. In addition, many customers in a shared room environment appreciate the fact that they have the option to either manually dial or have fully automated managed calls connect to their partners."

The B2B and inter-network connectivity of TEN features secure, guaranteed bandwidth with quality of service (QoS). It also offers a global dial plan providing unique E.164 addresses to all exchange participants for simplified dialing between organizations.

"Key considerations for customers connecting telepresence and video conferencing outside of their network are security, quality, interoperability and ease of use. TEN addresses all of these areas," said Joe Laezza, president and CEO of Glowpoint. "Channels and service providers, as well as enterprise customers, recognize the value of broad B2B collaboration, which is resulting in significant interest and adoption of TEN. We are proud to have Polycom join us in bringing this unique B2B capability to the Polycom user market and partner base."

TEN is already proven and offers its capabilities to more than 650 organizations as active customers, and thousands more connected in through public room communities. These customers are using the exchange to facilitate intercompany meetings using both traditional video conferencing and high definition telepresence systems. The exchange can support the full range of standards-based visual communication solutions including immersive, room and personal telepresence systems, as well as desktop video conferencing and traditional video conferencing systems. Polycom has shipped nearly 50,000 telepresence systems to date. By leveraging TEN, these 50,000 telepresence systems can communicate with telepresence systems within other organizations on different carrier networks, standards-based telepresence systems from other vendors, and the more than 1.5 million installed standard-based video conferencing systems in use today.

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