With personal speakerphones popping up all over the place, we could be experiencing a shift in the way we communicate. Whilst messaging and video are the two disruptor communications channels to force their way into businesses over the last decade, voice is still king. IP endpoint sales are up and the market remains as competitive as ever. I recently reviewed the best IP endpoints for business and had to ask for a word count extension.
Accepting the world hasn’t gone totally millennial just yet and phone calls need to happen, personal speakerphones are an ideal alternative to carrying round a spare desk phone – yes, people do that- or trying to hold a conference call via their poor quality smartphone speaker.
Use case for personal speaker phones
As the workplace of the future becomes the workplace of today, mobility is crucial to how we communicate and collaborate. As mobile working has been enabled more and more, expectations for collaborating on the move have been raised tenfold by the quality of technology available today.
When on the move, productivity is crucial. A poor quality conference call can ruin the rest of your plans for the day. If you have to type up notes, prepare a board report or finalise an article, you need to hear what is being said on the other end of the phone. Smartphone manufacturers like Samsung and Apple have ceased to invest in audio quality for calls. Recognition that smartphones are used for more than just voice as their primary purpose has seen their focus shift to connectivity and finger tapping functionality.
This left a hole in the market for the mobile user that genuinely needs to host or join conference calls. There is a whole host of hardware available to connect to a call, of course. I use a headset connected via Bluetooth when I am working at home and my mobile when I’m commuting.
However, if I am working at a customer’s site where I do not have my own desk, I often need to join a call with another person in the room with me. This is the perfect use case for a personal speakerphone. We dial in using the conference bridge and connect the speakerphone so the small room can hear and be heard clearly. Connectivity is seamless – either plug and play via USB or connect via Bluetooth.
There’s also the case of the home worker. If I’m on a long conference call, headsets get uncomfortable. Headset vendors may argue the case against this through comfort advancements but let’s get real. Nobody wants to be wearing a headset for more than an hour. For the home worker that heavily users the phone, you don’t want to be holding a phone or wearing a headset. A personal speakerphone is the best alternative to muffled audio through your laptop speakers and microphone – with the added bonus of being able to unplug it and store it in your bag when you go to see a client.
The use case is clear. That’s why we see so many vendors offering their own version. Vendors dabbling in this market currently include:
- Jabra
- Poly
- Sennheiser
- Konftel
- Bose
- Sony
- Logitech
- Yealink
- Yamaha
Why have all the vendors jumped on board?
There’s a common tactic in marketing. If you’re competitor is doing something, you should be doing it too. There are a few ways to phrase that and many ways to view it. That could be a small reason as to why we see so many vendors launching their own conference unit.
Getting ahead of the curve in any market requires your own product offering. Slightly different rules apply in the reseller world but product manufacturers need to be producing rival products in all categories that their rivals are operating.
My personal opinion is that any knowledge worker should be offered remote working or at least some flexibility in their working environment. The technology is ready. And the personal speakerphone is another upvote for remote and mobile working. Whilst that’s not a ground breaking statement, it is one that major vendors will also get behind.
Sennheiser Speakerphone SP30/30+[/caption]
