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ExtraTeam Broadens Its Expertise in Implementing Unified Communications Solutions Within Today’s Customer Environments

Pleasanton, CA – September 5, 2012 – ExtraTeam, Inc., a leading technology consulting firm and systems integrator today announced it has been named by Polycom, Inc., the global leader in open standards-based unified communications (UC) as a Gold Level Polycom Choice Partner. Now organizations seeking to implement world-class UC platforms can turn to ExtraTeam for customized solutions that address their immediate and future business needs.

The Gold Level designation indicates that ExtraTeam has made the investments in its technical expertise and go-to-market capabilities required to address the complex needs of today’s UC customers. Gold Level Polycom Choice Partners also must have met the program’s exacting standards, including achieving and maintaining specialization in multiple areas.

Customers can be confident that, in alliance with Polycom, ExtraTeam has the expertise to handle all their UC project needs, from concept to installation through ongoing support and management.  Polycom provides open, standards-based UC solutions for telepresence, video, and voice powered by the Polycom^® RealPresence^® Platform. Polycom® RealPresence® video solutions interoperate with the broadest range of business, mobile, and social applications and devices. With ExtraTeam’s solutions, organizations can leverage Polycom technologies to improve services, such as face-to-face collaboration, video-based training, plug-and-play voice communications, access to popular office productivity applications, and customized UC deployments.

“Collaboration is top-of-mind with our customers right now,” said Neil Setchell, CEO, ExtraTeam.  “They are looking for ways to increase productivity and accelerate time-to-market. Polycom’s products and solutions help solve our customers’ most pressing business requirements and enable us to deliver tangible value.”

ExtraTeam offers comprehensive solutions for unified communication and collaboration, security, network, mobility, software development and data center. Additionally, the company provides remote monitoring and management services that ensure high network availability and uptime.  ExtraTeam was recently awarded Polycom’s Global Partner of the Year for Excellence in Integration.

“The Polycom Choice Partner Program gives customers the confidence that, by choosing ExtraTeam and Polycom, they’re selecting a world-class team to help them design and implement a world-class UC solution,” said Ron Myers, senior vice president, Global Channels at Polycom. “By collaborating with Polycom as a Gold Level Choice Partner, ExtraTeam can deliver UC solutions that power greater productivity and smarter conversations, transforming lives and businesses in the process.”

About Polycom Choice Partner Program

Winner of CRN Magazine’s 5-Star Partner Program Award for three consecutive years, Polycom’s Choice Partner Program emphasizes skills development, specialization, and other value added activities that help partners support the needs of their customers and improve the customer experience. The Choice Partner Program provides partners with resources, recognition, rewards, and real ROI.  The program helps partners deliver complete solutions to customers more quickly, increase market visibility, and create additional opportunities to meet the needs of customers. For more information, visit http://www.polycom.com/partners/partner_programs/channel_partners/choice_partner_program.html.

Contact:
Laura Berkley
ExtraTeam, Inc.
925-398-4400
sales@extrateam.com

The business of accelerating business is always on the minds of ExtraTeam management, navigating growth and making smart decisions to keep the momentum moving in the right direction.  The latest addition of seasoned Sales executive, Wayne Allen, to direct business development efforts on the West Coast is all part of the company’s master plan.

Wayne joins ExtraTeam from Technology Integration Group (TIG) where he was Area Business Development Director responsible for increasing sales performance over the past two years.  While at TIG, he was viewed as a trusted advisor among his clients and valued liked a tenured professor for his 20 years of experience in the Information Technology market. Prior to TIG, he was Director of Northern California Sales at Insight Enterprises, and Territory Vice President at CompuCom where he over-achieved sales quotas by expanding business within existing accounts and adding new customers.

ExtraTeam looks to Wayne to bring the same level of enthusiasm and performance to sales in the West.  He’s confident that he can continue the upward trajectory of ExtraTeam’s sales because he knows just how to hit the street running and work toward having a positive impact within the first month.  As Wayne puts it, “The decision to join ExtraTeam was simple given the level of satisfied customers to their credit.  With a foundation as strong as that, I can focus on ramping our new sales talent to accelerate winning new business.”

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It’s well understood at ExtraTeam that there are no short cuts when it comes to continuous education and partner certifications. Customers trust us with their most critical business asset—their network—because they have confidence in our knowledge and expertise. We represent that caliber of expertise in the certifications we achieve and our efforts to continuously build our skills through ongoing education.The value of education and certifications has repeatedly proven to be important factors in customer satisfaction and retention, as well as attaining new business.

The importance of this is ingrained in our culture and central to the company’s long-term strategy for growth. ExtraTeam’s talent includes some of the best-and-brightest engineering minds, accomplished technology authors, double certified and actively sharing their knowledge through social networks, so the world-at-large benefits.

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Because technology never stops changing, being in the business of IT and infrastructure support is good. ExtraTeam’s focus has been in all the sweet spots where customers have needs and questions, to which we have answers. Our conversations are usually about one of the following: unified communications, data centers, SharePoint development, mobile, security, collaboration, video, telepresence, and of course, ongoing maintenance and support. Hard work is still essential to survive as the fittest and in our case, it’s resulted in very healthy year-over-year growth at ExtraTeam. Over the last year our growth rate reached 41% in revenues and hundreds of new customers. We think this is something to shout about and more importantly, leverage into a business advantage. So, we’ve expanded and set up shop on the east coast.

Our customers’ needs for broader geographic coverage has played a key role in our expansion into the New York Metro area. Placing tenured engineering and support resources locally has enabled ExtraTeam to not only provide critical services deeper within existing customers’ businesses, but also attract new companies seeking IT infrastructure support services. And, we like that. It takes talent to land in a new area and capture momentum right from the start. Our east coast talent is based in New Jersey and is led by one of our best network architects—Jeff Lefkowitz. Jeff is Cisco-certified (CCIE) and specializes in networking and security projects with experience in a variety of technologies, including routing, switching, content services, data center virtualization, SharePoint deployment, host based IPS and VOIP.

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