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Poly vs Zoom
March 12, 2025 | Author: Adam Levine
4★
Collaborate anywhere, anytime, with anyone using Polycom video, voice, and content-sharing solutions. One-touch ease; audio and video with crystal-clear quality; enterprise-grade security, reliability and scalability. Polycom solutions give you the flexibility to meet and collaborate with colleagues, partners, and customers in any environment―immersive theater, conference room, work office, home office, or on-the-go. Wherever you are, wherever you go.
36★
Zoom unifies cloud video conferencing, simple online meetings, and cross platform group chat into one easy-to-use platform. Our solution offers the best video, audio, and screen-sharing experience across Zoom Rooms, Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and H.323/SIP room systems.
Poly and Zoom are two remarkably clever ways for people to see and hear each other without the inconvenience of actually being in the same room, which, given the general state of human interaction, is probably for the best. Both let users talk, wave and pretend their cat walking across the keyboard is an accident. They integrate with all sorts of other applications, promise high-definition visuals and use AI to make sure that, even in the worst of conditions, your voice will still sound suspiciously better than it does in real life. Businesses, remote workers and those avoiding social contact but still needing to appear professional swear by them.
Poly, however, was doing all this long before video calls were the standard excuse for avoiding in-person meetings. Originally founded in 1990 and later morphing into Poly after a corporate buyout in 2019, it hails from the grand state of California and is rather fond of selling actual physical devices—phones, headsets and things with buttons that blink reassuringly. It caters to the sort of companies that like their meeting rooms to feel expensive and futuristic, with noise-canceling magic and microphones capable of picking up the most reluctant sigh of an underpaid employee in the back row.
Zoom, on the other hand, materialized in 2013 with an entirely software-based approach, rapidly conquering the world by offering free video calls and a charming tendency to cut people off mid-sentence after 40 minutes. Also from California—because apparently, all good conferencing ideas come from there—it quickly became the darling of not just businesses but teachers, social groups and anyone who realized they could attend a meeting without putting on real pants. While Poly focuses on hardware and polished, high-end conferencing, Zoom thrives on ubiquity, spontaneity and the quiet dread of someone about to ask, "Can you all see my screen?"
See also: Top 10 Videoconferencing software
Poly, however, was doing all this long before video calls were the standard excuse for avoiding in-person meetings. Originally founded in 1990 and later morphing into Poly after a corporate buyout in 2019, it hails from the grand state of California and is rather fond of selling actual physical devices—phones, headsets and things with buttons that blink reassuringly. It caters to the sort of companies that like their meeting rooms to feel expensive and futuristic, with noise-canceling magic and microphones capable of picking up the most reluctant sigh of an underpaid employee in the back row.
Zoom, on the other hand, materialized in 2013 with an entirely software-based approach, rapidly conquering the world by offering free video calls and a charming tendency to cut people off mid-sentence after 40 minutes. Also from California—because apparently, all good conferencing ideas come from there—it quickly became the darling of not just businesses but teachers, social groups and anyone who realized they could attend a meeting without putting on real pants. While Poly focuses on hardware and polished, high-end conferencing, Zoom thrives on ubiquity, spontaneity and the quiet dread of someone about to ask, "Can you all see my screen?"
See also: Top 10 Videoconferencing software
