David J.
Danto
AV, Collaboration, IoT, Technology, UC and Video Industry Analyst
Director of Emerging
Technology
Interactive
Multimedia & Collaborative Communications Alliance
eMail: ddanto@IMCCA.org 
Follow Industry News: @NJDavidD
(Read David’s Bio) (See David’s CV) (Read David’s Other Blogs & Articles)
A View From The Road Volume 13, Number
2
Enterprise Connect
2019
Greetings from Orlando where
Enterprise Connect 2019 just concluded.
This conference – a bit more for industry people and analysts than for
end-users – certainly marked a transitional period for our industry. Over the four days of the event there were a
lot of elements of this change to take note of.
As I’ve done for conference
wrap-up blogs in the past, I’m going to split the task of authoring this one
with my friend and industry colleague, David Maldow. David, the founder and president of Let’s Do Video
will cover the individual exhibitors as part two, and I’ll be reviewing the
major themes to come out of the conference as part one.
Part of my reason for sharing the
duties is my own transition. While I’m
still the Director of Emerging Technology for the IMCCA,
a blogger, vlogger and editor of industry publications –and prefer to still
classify myself as an “analyst” –I’ve left my day job at an integrator and
joined the team at Poly (the firm formerly known as Plantronics / Polycom –
more on that renaming later.) While some
may legitimately question how I can be an analyst and work for one of the firms
in the industry, I would reply with the explanations that Poly’s leadership has
empowered me to maintain an independent voice in the space (to the extent that
I can); I’ve worn multiple hats in the industry for years and have always
maintained the required integrity and impartiality (and see no reason to stop
that now); and finally, if you think all of our industry analysts aren’t “paid”
by the manufacturers, you really must not be paying attention – I’m just doing
it out in the open. While I’m very
comfortable speaking to the keynotes and the trends and themes revealing
themselves to our industry, I’d best not comment on the individual exhibitors /
competitors, as there are certain ‘sensitivities’ amongst some firms that I’d
rather not exacerbate.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There were clearly a number of
themes central to this year’s Enterprise Connect:
· AI: Most attendees were very interested in how
artificial intelligence and machine learning would change what we do. There were a small number of sessions and one
keynote from Cisco that addressed this directly, but from the questions asked in
the sessions and the manufacturer’s exhibits it was clear that this is
something everyone is hyper-focused upon.
Whether it’s to help in retrieving appropriate background for sales and
support calls, help manage inquiries automatically, help support voice control
of systems or just generally work at improving the user experience, AI will
clearly play a large role. Look for more
session focus on this topic at future events.
· Frictionless: The users that attended made it very clear –
in their questions and comments – that there is still too much in their way
preventing easy meetings. While many of
the manufacturers and service-providers have made it easier to connect on their systems and platforms, at the same
time they’ve made interoperability an even bigger monster – and users are
fed-up. (It’s hard to believe that in
2019 we’re still legitimately
complaining about interoperability.) “We
just want it to work” is the clearly the continuing user mantra.
· “One
size”: I can’t even count how many
times speakers and attendees repeated the phrase “one size does not fit
all.” This is clearly a backlash against
manufacturers and service-providers that say the solution to all the problems
in the world is using their system or platform.
Users were loud and clear – regardless if the topic was cloud,
soft-phones, platforms or team-chat – every tool/platform/device being offered
is not appropriate for every user application.
· Team-Chat: It was interesting to see how much of last
year’s hype around that subject has died down.
If you recall – at Enterprise Connect 2018 – just about every keynote
addressed the fad. This year, for the
most part, Microsoft was the only vendor still emphasizing team chat in their
“Teams” platform. I personally believe
the reason for this (as I’ve stated before) is that team chat / persistent chat
platforms just do not scale well for large enterprises. They are a fabulous tool, but only really
appropriate when you have a small-ish (~5 to ~50)
team of people motivated to engage on the topic at hand. When you try to use it for hundreds or
thousands of people it loses much of its power to improve productivity and
increase engagement. With larger numbers
of users it is likely that you will have a percentage of non-motivated
individuals that will require “chasing” to contribute to the tasks, doubling
the workload in any necessary parallel effort.
I like “teams” and use it daily, but IMHO it is one of many
collaboration tools in the toolbox, not the single one that we’ll all be using
in the future.
· Democratization: Regardless of any competitive disagreements,
it was clear that costs of collaboration are dropping substantially. Service providers have more competition which
drives costs down, there is an explosion of room collaboration platforms that
work off of general compute platforms – which drives costs down; and
manufacturers are building new peripherals and appliances for a fraction of
what they used to cost. The result of
this is collaboration is growing at a much faster pace and with a much greater
ability to scale than ever before. The
“video is the new voice” mantra of many years ago may actually come true.
· WebRTC: Ok, I’m just throwing this one in for the
requisite groan. (Bla,
bla.bla…..WebRTC will be how everything will
interoperate in the future….bla, bla,
bla…It will revolutionize collaboration…..bla, bla, bla….everyone
will eventually adopt the same standard….. bla, bla, bla.) Yes, there were still a few people that were
actually still chanting this at the conference this year. Maybe it will eventually be great or maybe it
won’t, but as I’ve been saying for many years, don’t hold your breath. Interoperability is something our industry
could have today if the manufacturers and service providers really wanted to do
it. Saying ‘it will be there in the future, but only when everybody else adopts
the standard that I’ve chosen’ is transparent enough to be seen for what it
is.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There were a number of good
keynote presentations this year. For the
first time in a number of years, none of them were downright embarrassing (no
shorts, no silly conversations with one end user, no
cupcakes.) In my opinion, for the second
year in a row, Microsoft Clearly presented the best one.
Lori Wright, Microsoft’s General
Manager of MS 365 anchored an interesting and engaging presentation and
demonstration, which for the most part wowed the audience.
Before I give her the deserved
credit, I have to ask (as everyone else who attended did) what the heck was
with the smoke she used as she entered?
It was a totally inappropriate and unnecessary stage effect that led to
a number of jokes: Where were the
mirrors? Who is Microsoft trying to
hide from? The Wintel processors are running so hot to deliver the needed
performance they’re burning up? Etc.
The heart of the presentation was
not nearly as silly. MS showed a number
of exciting features – including real-time captioning of video calls (in case
you need to take them in noisy environments and don’t have a good headset) and
mobile first extensions that are targeted to specific verticals. MS also joined the handful of manufacturers
that are supporting camera pick-up of standard whiteboards for transmission down
the data channel to remote meeting participants. As one of the providers of an expensive
Interactive WhiteBoard (Surface Hub 1/2) and even
showing a partner’s IWB (Avocor)
right on stage next to the whiteboard demonstration, it tacitly raised the
legitimate issue that most general use applications will not require these
expensive devices any longer – so it was weird to reconcile that mixed
message. For the most part however, it
hit all the key parts of a great keynote – including showing actual new features
actually working that people can use.
Microsoft’s
Demos
Cisco’s Amy Chang delivered their
keynote the following day. It was
essentially a slick presentation of their concept of “Cognitive Collaboration”
meaning how AI will support the merging of real-time data in collaboration applications
and contact center / sales environments.
Those who had not seen the presentation before said they were impressed
by the theme. Those who had been to
prior Enterprise Connect events and Cisco events from earlier this year were
far less impressed. It was a keynote
made up of high-level themes and slickly produced videos, but little actual
functioning product / service.
Cisco’s
People ID Demo Here At EC 2019 On The Left, Cisco’s
People ID Demo From EC 2017 On The Right
The product demo that was provided
first erroneously claimed that wide-angle cameras from their unnamed
“competition” can’t correct for wide-angle fish-eye effects (which isn’t true
for most), and then showed a Room Kit Mini that automatically recognized the
speakers and superimposed their names on the screen. It was just a duplicate of
technology we saw one and even two years ago from Cisco at this event (see
above) when Snorre Kjesbu
was one of the remote participants identified.
Snorre (and much of the heart and soul of
Cisco’s collaboration team) has left the firm, and their replacements have yet
to show that they even understand this industry.
The other keynotes I attended –
From Walmart, Amazon and Google – were essentially ‘here’s what we do and
here’s how we do it’ presentations.
Interesting, but not really what I believe most people attend the
keynote sessions to see. Instead of that
high-level messaging I really would like to have seen those firms show the
attendees how they could use either new or existing features / services to
improve their collaboration needs.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WARNING – BRAGGING SECTION: I do have to recognize my team, the former
Plantronics / Polycom firms now combined into our new firm called “Poly” as
having a terrific presence and performance at the conference. I’ll let my friend David Maldow go over the
products and details he saw, and tell you about how our Studio device won the
best product at the show award, but as for the rebrand – it was everywhere – on
benches, escalators, lunch counters – you name it. Poly means many, and our firm will lead the
way in showing how the power of many will change the way we communicate and
collaborate. Click the new logo (called
the Poly Propeller) below if you want to see more of the new story.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Part Two: Booth Visits and Vendor Briefings
(by David Maldow)
8×8
Many cloud communications vendors found themselves with a unique
opportunity in recent years. They have a large, happy, user base on an existing
voice/chat solution that is now clamoring for video. Some companies in this
situation will try to create their own video code to add to their offerings.
That approach is a “catch up” model and requires time to be competitive. Other
companies purchase a technology and bolt it onto their solution. That approach
is stopgap, and will only carry a company until the next wave of innovation
hits the industry. Smart vendors, like 8×8, acquire a team of video experts to round out their
developers. Meghan
Keough (Global VP Product Marketing), Hunter Middleton
(Global VP Product Management) Emil Ivov, (Director of Product
Management, Meeting) shared with me how through the recent acquisition of Jitsi, 8×8 not only was able to upgrade its 8×8 Meetings
platform with current generation videoconferencing, but they now have an
internal team of video experts working on their next release.
Avaya
Chris McGugan (SVP Solutions & Technology) shared that
Avaya is still in the video collaboration game in a big way. They have new offerings in the huddle space, and are looking to support
today’s cloud centric workforce.
Aver
Carl Harvell (Sr. Director of Customer Success and Service), has been
keeping busy since our recent podcast about the new AVer CAM540. AVer has
an even newer offering out with the EP65, a flat screen
touch panel designed as an all-in-one Zoom Room solution. The popularity of
software based room solutions, such as Zoom Rooms, is changing the way
consumers purchase meeting room equipment. AVer was
quick to go all in on this wave, with product after product designed to support
this new way to enable video in meeting rooms. The EP65 is the next step in this
evolution, with literally one component to hang on a wall, power up, and
connect to the internet before making your first call.
Barco
Dave Fitzgerald (VP Global Alliances) had a few surprises
for me at the Barco booth. I am familiar with Barco’s leading Clickshare and UniSee products,
and aware of their larger portfolio of related offerings. What I wasn’t as
aware of is the power of some of their offerings on the software/service side
of the house such as Barco
Overture monitoring solution. The demand is growing for these kinds of
offerings, its great to see more options on the
market, and Overture looks pretty compelling.
BlueJeans
The Bluejeans team continues to see great
success from its partnership with Dolby, and its new modern user interface. I
had a chance to chat with Guillaume “G” Vives
(Chief Product Officer), Zachary Bosin
(Senior Director, Product Marketing), Erin Cheever (Corporate Communications), and John Knightly (SVP Product and Solution
Marketing). BlueJeans recently announced a new “Rooms-as-a-Service”
deployment model for BlueJeans Room licenses with the
Dolby Voice Room hardware. This model is attractive for many reasons. It’s low risk, and future proofed as you aren’t buying any
hardware. You aren’t buying a device, you are subscribing to have
videoconferencing enabled in your meeting rooms. As technology improves through
software and hardware updates, your subscription keeps you up to date. The BlueJeans team also had some NDA info to share with me. We
should expect some announcements in the next few quarters.
Cisco
A few years ago, Cisco got a very accomplished, impressive, charismatic,
new leader for its collaboration division. Some people questioned the choice,
as he didn’t come from the collaboration space. He made some dramatic changes,
fixed a lot of things that were very wrong, and made Cisco a ton of money. Now,
Cisco has a new, very accomplished, impressive, charismatic leader for its
collaboration division, and some people are again staying “But she doesn’t come
from the collaboration space.” I think its worth at least a “let’s wait and
see” before we dismiss Amy Chang. Even Cisco’s
critics have positive things to say about her. Cisco made it clear in their keynote
and briefings that they are going heavy on cognitive AI for meetings. The early
examples they have shown (names under video meeting participants, a
LinkedIn-like background page for meeting attendees, etc.) get a good reaction
from demo attendees, and it feels like this is the tip of the iceberg. From a
competitive perspective, it seems they are betting that the smaller cloud video
companies can not match their engineering muscle when
it comes to the massive computing needed for the big picture cognitive AI
concepts.
Cisco really has two battles to fight. As a recent Forbes article detailed, their Webex Meetings is going head to head with Zoom Meetings.
This may be the hottest fight in our industry right now. Webex
Meetings has a new, much improved, UI, and as Aruna Ravichandran (VP of Marketing for Cisco
Collaboration) explained in the Forbes piece, Cisco has a really broad set of
offerings and their customers like to get a complete solution from Cisco,
including Webex Meetings. Going full steam against
Zoom isn’t easy as Zoom users just have incredible loyalty and even affection
for the service. But Cisco is bringing the big guns, and a brand new Webex Meetings, to this fight.
Counterpath
Todd Carothers
(EVP of Sales, Marketing & Product), took me through the latest updates to
their Bria Teams offering, which was a finalist in this year’s Best of Enterprise Connect. I love
to see different vendors, and different approaches, to integrating the new team
chat workflow with our existing voice, video, and UC options.
Crestron
Crestron is stepping right into the LDV
wheelhouse with its Crestron UC Smart Soundbar
offering. Nic Milani (Executive
Director, Commercial Product Marketing) walked me through the specs and I was
pleased to see that current gen features like auto framing and people counting
are already supported. He also gave me a very visual demonstration of its
amazing pickup range as they had taped off lines on the ground at different
distances where a few of their competitor’s audio pickup cuts off. The taped
line for the Crestron Smart Bar was not only far behind its competitors, it was
across the aisle in the next booth. Obviously, this high end device, as part of
a suite of Crestron meeting tools, supported by Crestron’s management and
scheduling software, is going to be a compelling choice in the enterprise.
Cyviz
Peter
Stewart (President, Americas) showed me the highlights of Cyviz on an incredibly large display at the booth. Room
control, management, and analytics is becoming more and more interesting to
enterprise AV deployments, and solutions like Cyviz
provide far more than the monitoring systems of the past. Truly futuristic UIs
and incredibly granular control make AV management almost fun!
Dolby
It was great to catch up with Andrew Border (Vice
President, Dolby Voice) after having recently reviewed the new Dolby Voice Room with Highfive integration. After spending so much
time hands on with the device, I wanted to know Dolby’s true intention in the
business collaboration space. Are they dipping their toes in the space, to let
their engineers spread their wings a bit and show off their skills? Is the goal
to demonstrate the versatility and design chops of Dolby in different settings?
Or are they looking to be a part of the business collaboration space in a big
way? Of course no company will admit to dabbling, but Andrew really convinced
me that Dolby is serious about collaboration. Their development plans, product
roadmap, and future plans in the space were far beyond my expectations and
mostly NDA. Stay tuned for more from Dolby.
Fuze
I met with Eric Hanson (VP Product Marketing) who showed me the latest
features of the Fuze platform along with their
product roadmap and some notable customers. I feel like I should be paying
closer attention to Fuze and promise to follow up
with a closer look. They certainly have a presence at these events, but seem to
get left out of the discussion among analysts.
HighFive
Highfive had a
surprisingly large presence at Enterprise Connect for those who are not
familiar with the company and its new leadership. There are countless cloud
video vendors in the space, but new CEO Joe Manuele
and Chris Heinemann (Sr. Director, Corporate
Marketing) believe Highfive has the differentiators,
the developers, and the vision to be one of the few standout companies in the
space. Joe is quick to note parallels between the software upgrade-able device
approach in his Tesla, and the software upgrade-able device approach to Highfive in the meeting room. As shown in our recent evaluation of the Dolby Voice
Room with Highfive software, the
experience was defined by the software and supported by the hardware. Just like
the Tesla. As Highfive adds more hardware partners,
we can expect each integration to be just as customized and responsive to end
users feedback.
Jabra
I was particularly excited to chat with James Hart (Global
Marketing Operations) this year at EC. Of course, it is always great to catch
up with a legendary brand and leader in audio, but this year there was more.
Jabra’s parent company had just purchased Altia Systems, which I
have been following closely since its inception. It is too early to predict
anything, but the potential for a huddle room bundle with Jabra audio and the Altia Systems PanaCast camera is
pretty obvious to me. A bundle like that would be instantly differentiated by
the unique capabilities of the PanaCast. This is
clearly one to watch.
Lifesize
When I first started covering this industry, a new company came out of
nowhere offering 720p videoconferencing. The analysts and pundits laughed,
saying that no one was asking for higher than 480p broadcast tv resolution. The buzz was
interop and affordability, not higher resolution. Then Lifesize
hit the market and high def became the biggest trend
in videoconferencing. Now, Lifesize is offering a
full suite of video solutions from boardroom to huddle room, along the lines of
industry expectations, but with a key differentiator of 4k resolution. Will HD
lightning strike twice for Lifesize? Will the market
once again say “Well, if they all do the same thing, why not get the 4K one?” Bobby Beckmann
(CTO), showed me the latest endpoints, as well as the new Lifesize Share.
Logitech
Talk about being at the right place at the right time. Just as Logitech
establishes itself as not just a safe choice, but a leader with its business
facing video collaboration gear, the market explodes with a need for just these
types of devices. The “peripheral based software room kit” segment is on fire,
and Logitech is the first peripheral vendor that many people think of in this
context. Joan Vandermate (Head
of Marketing, Collaboration Business Unit) and Robin
Raulf-Sager (Global Communications, Video
Solutions), showed me the new Logitech Tap, which rounds out any software room
kit by functioning as the hub/control panel, allowing for a complete kit using
only Logitech components. Check out this awesome video the team put together
to show how easy it is to join a meeting with a single tap.
Microsoft
How central is Microsoft Teams to every discussion at Enterprise Connect
(in addition to winning Best Overall of EC)? I literally had one vendor show me the
new “MS Teams” button on his audio device, and when I asked what the button
would do, he looked confused for a second, then smiled and said “Whatever
Microsoft wants it to do!” That happened.
At the Microsoft booth itself, Kendra Baker (Microsoft Teams Product Marketing), hosted a
large group of analysts giving us an up close and personal look at the latest
MS Teams products and partner integrations. Some in particular had a pretty
cool wow factor, but my overall feeling was “oh my goodness they are tying MS
Teams into everything that isn’t moving, and some things that are moving.” I’ve
been using MS Teams with my internal LDV team, and
while there are certain areas where they really knocked my socks off, I have a
few nits with the workflow. Stay tuned for a more in depth look.
Nureva
Adrian Doughty gave me a run through of the latest innovations
from Nureva. While there are always advances “under
the hood” to improve performance, I was most impressed by the development they
continuously make to the software of their Span Wall solution in response to
customer feedback. Features such as PDF support, more color/customization
options, improved sharing workflows, may not seem game changing, but a
continuously developing platform is exactly what customers need to ensure
future workflows will be supported.
Otter
I was able to get a last minute briefing with Sam Liang (CEO) after I
learned that Otter is the
technology powering one of Zoom’s hottest new features. I downloaded the free
Otter app to my phone, hit the start button, and was amazed when it immediately
began to transcribe our conversation in real time, with impressive accuracy.
This is one of those “you gotta check this out
yourself” things. Go get the free app from the app store on your phone right
now and try it.
Pexip
Karl Hantho (President – Americas) and Lindsey Baine
(Marketing Manager) had plenty to share with me regarding Microsoft Teams
integrations, new customers and partners, continuing growth, opening new
locations, and other good news. But the big story continues to be the
incredible synergy, and seamless merger, of Pexip and
Videxio. In terms of offering, personnel, and even
corporate culture, it is the model of a win/win. Pexip
continues to push forward with new developments to the platform, while Videxio wraps it in a service that brings modern usability
and ease of use to traditional high quality videoconferencing deployments.
PGi
It was great to catch up with Mark Roberts (CMO) and learn about PGi’s plans
for collaboration. It is a bit of a no-brainer when you put the pieces
together. PGi has a great, global, audio network.
Their customers want UCaaS over that great network and PGi is ready to deliver it.
Part of getting ready was having Mark himself, and Don Joos,
joining the PGi team with their high level leadership
experience in delivering UCaaS.
Phoenix
Ryan Root and the Phoenix team had a whole bunch
of news under NDA for me. They are seriously reinventing this company, mark my
words. For now, they continue to highlight leading products such as their Stingray DSP Mixer. To learn more, please tune in
for an April 10th webinar where I
will chat with Phoenix customers about the unique benefits of a “programming
free” DSP.
Poly
The Poly Announcement was certainly a key event at EC this
year. Poly branding was everywhere and the Polycom Studio won a best of show. Polycom is a historic presence in our
industry and even competitors seemed to be hoping that the Plantronics deal
works out well. So far it certainly seems to be doing so as everyone speaks
positively about the synergies, product plans, and leadership team of the new
organization. David
Danto, (Director of UC Strategy and Research), a familiar face to many at EC, first appeared in his new role at Poly to
share and explain the new company, its vision, and direction. My personal take?
It is still very early, but I like it when a company focuses on what they are
good at and plays to its strengths. There are things that Polycom and
Plantronics are extremely good at, and they seem to be focusing 100% on them.
Sennheiser
Everyone expects Sennheiser to show up with a
new impressive line of gear at these events. What I didn’t expect, and was
pleased to see, was Sennheiser going beyond its
expertise in audio hardware, and positioning itself as experts and influencers
in the greater trends in the collaboration community. Sennheiser
hosted an analyst panel on future trends in the workplace, to provide a forum
for analysts and end users to share data and experiences from our ever changing
workflows and productivity methodologies. The subject wasn’t audio and
headphones, it was users and workflows. Similarly, Sennheiser
participated in the recent IMCCA NY Summit along
similar educational, and user community support, lines. Of course, Jim
Fairweather (Vice President Sales & Marketing)
also had plenty of the latest and greatest gear to show off as well.
Zoom
Zoom had a massive presence at EC this year. They had a two story booth
to show off all their partnered solutions and talk about their new Zoom Phone, Zoom Room, and Zoom
Meeting announcements. Their execs were on numerous panels. Their
software was on display in countless partner booths. They also were clearly
occupying plenty of rent-free space in their competitor’s heads. Janelle
Raney (Head of Product Marketing) assured me that Zoom is not
resting on its success, and will continue following their formula of
prioritizing customer happiness.
The biggest story, however, was the one that everyone knew, but no one
was allowed to talk about. Zoom is going public. The
Twitter reactions say it all.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That’s it for Enterprise
Connect 2019! Look for my next View From The Road from InfoComm 2019 in June. As opposed to the last number of years, the IMCCA and I are not at all involved in the planning and
vetting of the UC track or Emerging Trends day there, as Avixa
preferred to handle those tasks internally rather than use an industry
accredited group like ours to ensure the quality and value of the
presentations. We wish them well as they
plan an exciting event. The Spring issue of Sound and Communications IT/AV Report will
be available at that conference – the first complete issue that I’ve personally
edited myself. We’re putting it to bed
as I write this. It is themed around
emerging technology, and it’ll be full of some great articles on Team Chat,
Data Lakes, Bluetooth, The Changing Corporate Office Floorplan, and will
include an engaging and timely Viewpoint debate on general compute vs.
appliances for room collaboration. It
will also have a few opinion columns from industry analysts and myself on the
directions our industry and associations are taking.
==================================================================================
This
article was written by David Danto and contains solely his own, personal opinions. David
has over three decades of experience providing problem solving leadership and
innovation in media and unified communications technologies for various firms
in the corporate, broadcasting and academic worlds including AT&T,
Bloomberg LP, FNN, Morgan Stanley, NYU, Lehman Brothers and JP Morgan Chase. He
is the IMCCA’s Director of Emerging Technology and Poly’s Director of
UC Strategy and Research. David can be reached at DDanto@imcca.org and his full bio and other blogs and articles can be
seen at Danto.info.
All images and links provided above as reference under
prevailing fair use statutes.