
Doug Schaefer
Chief Technology Officer
American Sound
Doug Schaefer
What has been your business/work highlight or achievement of 2024?
Deploying Pexip Infinity in Azure.
Who do you think has had the most positive impact on the UC space in 2024 and why?
I’m always a fan of Jimmy Vaughan’s content. The Teams roadmap updates are really helpful, and he is very good at breaking down the reasoning behind feature releases and device certification.
What was your biggest business surprise in 2024?
Well, my company exceeding our revenue goal by $10m was pretty shocking (in a good way) but I’d say as far as UC business, the interoperability updates from Pexip for Zoom and Teams Rooms for Windows were huge quality of life improvements for multi-platform collaboration clients.
What was the most useful business book/podcast you’ve read/listened to in 2024?
Art of Network Engineering.
What’s the biggest challenge you and your team will face in 2025?
I think finding reliable, practical applications for AI in everyday workflows is always an ongoing challenge because it requires you to think completely differently about how you do things that you’ve been doing constantly for years. It’ll be interesting to see how that develops this year.
What technology will have the greatest impact on your business in 2025 and why?
Cloud networking and artificial intelligence.