The Growing Number of Solutions That Are Easy to Deploy and Use
One of the most compelling trends at this year’s ISE was how many vendors were prioritising ease-of-use and ease-of-installation technology.
As organisations settle into hybrid models that work for them, their needs have evolved since the pandemic; the variety and volume of meetings means having technology only operable by experts or IT admins and managers is no longer palatable for many of these organisations.
Technology in which any and every employee can be educated to competency has quickly become a significant selling point for customers.
“Rapid technology changes that can often overcomplicate the simplicity of a meeting — create a need to simplify the meeting space, so a user just has to ‘press the easy button’ so to speak, and focus on a successful meeting, rather than cumbersome connections,” said Holli Hulett, co-founder of Boom Collaboration, told UC Today. “Simplicity is key. Users don’t want to do their own IT support.”
“The communications world is evolving at an exciting pace, and we find it’s of utmost importance to focus on simplicity/ease of use so a user can appreciate all the evolving technologies but only at the simple press of a button, wherever possible.”
Meeting Room Experiences Are Getting Futuristic
Sometimes, it feels like we’re at the beginning of a science-fiction novel, such is the extent of how far technology has accelerated in recent years. While spatial computers, the metaverse, and the remarkable smarts of AI are the most glamorous examples, you only need to stroll around the ISE conference halls to feel how futuristic our workspaces have become.
One of the most eye-catching spaces on the floor in this regard was Owl Labs, whose central camera system, the Owl 3, is designed pleasingly and distinctively like, you guessed it, an owl.
This was the epicentre of a robust room system of three cameras, all wirelessly connected on their own private WiFi mesh network, that also included an Owl Bar, which used complex speaker identification for camera zoom, as well as an exciting feature that meant when a user writes on the meeting room whiteboard. This is powered by a third camera — the Whiteboard Owl — that recognises this is happening and turns the user in question opaque so meeting participants at home can see what they’re writing.
“Everything we’ve done at Owl has been remote-focused,” explained Ben MacDonald, Vice President of Global Sales at Owl Labs, to UC Today at the vendor’s ISE booth. “That’s why we have the translucent quality when the whiteboard is being used. The angles of the cameras are set up for a complete view of the room, so everything is designed to be remote-focused.”
“It’s all about the experience on the far end and democratising the meeting and making sure everybody feels a part of it as we got back to the office,” MacDonald added.
Some Vendors Focusing On ‘Every Product For The Right Place’
Some vendors suggest that, while the accessibility and useability of all-in-one solutions are obviously important, having the best quality product sometimes necessitates complexity and unique product demands to get the most out of a meeting room experience.
Rob Smith, Senior Director of System Sales at Shure, suggested to UC Today at ISE that all-in-one offerings aren’t necessarily always the ideal solution.
“If you’re an IT buyer in a Fortune 500 company, you’ve got 500 rooms to build for. It’s easier to buy one box and a screen. For many of the smaller rooms, that’s fine,” Smith said.
“But physics gets involved,” he continued, “and if you get into a bigger room, if you’re sat at the back, you might not be able to hear, and people at the far end certainly can’t hear you. Where do the managing directors and CEOs sit? At the back of the table. The person you can’t hear is the most expensive person in the room. If you think about the money you’re wasting in having that very expensive person not heard.”
“You’ve got to use the right product for the right solution. We’re very much driving to make our products easy to use and easy to install. That’s part of it, and all-in-ones have their place. But it’s about every product for its right place.”
“We’ve long been providing the best microphone experiences for those very large conference rooms,” Smith added. “We’re the world’s best at that. There are ways of doing smaller rooms and smaller budgets, but the results are not as good. Our real target is a great experience wherever you’re meeting, whether at home, in a single meeting cube, a small meeting room, or an auditorium. You should have the same experience.”
AI Expanding Its Horizons In UC&C
Generative AI took the world by storm in 2023 — in the form of ChatGPT, of course, but many other vendors introduced some form of AI-powered productivity assistant across their UC and collaboration platforms.
That was exciting, and the way these technologies are revolutionising productivity and performance in the workplace continues to be impressive, but as the hype train slows down on that particular use case for AI, more novel and unique AI applications are coming to the fore instead.
“Just coming off CES where AI was literally everywhere, frankly, you don’t see it as much here,” Craig Durr, Principal Analyst at the Futurum Group, told UC Today on the ISE show floor. “It’s still existing but in different spaces.”
“Microsoft is here giving some great demonstrations of Copilot working into connectivity, but I think AI in this space is aligned more in the technology that may you experience but not interact with. So, audio AI is taking place with Cisco, for example. Video AI, smart television camera-switching. There’s a lot of analytics taking place about what is taking place in the rooms, and that’s driven by AI.”
“There is some in-room experience, with talking to the monitor and things like that, but those interesting types of AI I’ve seen are removing friction, but they’re not necessarily an interaction that the end user needs to touch.”
The Interoperability Movement Continues
An intriguing trend from 2023 was how many vendors focused on making their products and platforms interoperable. As one expert put it to UC Today, in the UC world, the space between collaborator and competitor is often a grey area.
ISE suggested that trend will be maintained, with one of the most eye-catching announcements being Cisco, Microsoft and Samsung collaborating on a set of meeting room solutions.
The combined room kits entail Cisco devices powered by its RoomOS software and integrated with Samsung smart signage displays featuring Microsoft Teams with Front Row. The overarching ambition of the collaboration is integrating video collaboration solutions into the Cisco Room Series. These solutions include Front Row, an inclusive content layout tailored explicitly for Microsoft Teams Rooms.
“We really wanted to elevate our meeting experiences for a while, so with Microsoft and Samsung, we wanted 21:9 screens and higher resolution screens into our flagship experiences,” Rich Bayes, Senior Director of Product Management and Device AI and Manager of Strategic Partnerships at Cisco, explained to UC Today at ISE. “We are bringing the highest resolution when it comes to Microsoft Teams Rooms when it comes to Cisco devices.”
Is this level of interoperability between traditional competitors a trend that will continue?
“I think it will,” Bayes said. “At the end of the day, customers are looking for protection on their investment for the hardware they put into the space. At Cisco, we have a strategy for being open and interoperable with any platform(…) I still think interoperability is going to be critical to make sure we can deliver the best meeting experience possible.
“If you can’t deliver a baseline experience for every meeting platform with the expectations users have today, it doesn’t matter what AI features or what button you have below it because it starts the baseline there.”
