The Future of Hybrid Work: How Airtame and Jabra Are Simplifying Meeting Room Experiences with Next-Gen Tech

Hello, everybody. Welcome to, a great podcast this time with, Jabra and Airtame. My name's Ollie Henderson, head of product, on the video side here at Jabra, and I'm delighted to be joined by my good friend Jonas, who's such a good friend. I've never tackled his second name, so I'm gonna go for it now. But Jonas Jonas. Yalike. Oh, that's close. Actually, much closer than what I'm used to. Jonas Jallokoy. So Ah, there we go. Very good. Yeah. I was even getting coaching from some of my Danish colleagues, Jonas, and I still I still It doesn't help because it's Hungarian, honestly. So Ah. Yeah. There we go. Very interesting. Very interesting. But you are CEO, right, at Adze? I used to be, honestly, but, I'm more of a a free role now. I'm I'm a cofounder, so I've been here for for twelve years. Served as CEO. Now, I'm leading up strategic partnerships as the main thing, and then the market global marketing as well. Good stuff. Good stuff. And, I know that, Chadra and, Airtame, both work closely together, great partners, so wanna thank you for the partnership. I think there's lots of exciting things that we've tackled together, and I know that you and I are talking about lots of scope moving forward together, especially pertaining to sort of this common ground or commonality of where we can be at with hybrid work situations. And I think, ultimately, that's pretty much where where we can take our discussion today. So, you know, we often hear this phrase hybrid simplification. I kind of roll that into an ultimate just how are we working? How are the Fortune one hundred, five hundred enterprise working? And, what are in the some of the conversations you've been having recently, what what's your, take on how the industry is, how companies are working? Where are they at in twenty five into twenty six, Jonas? Yeah. So, that's a big question. And, of course, I will kind of talk to some general trends. We spoke about this before as well, but there is a a return to to work trend going on, across the world. I would say US is probably leading leading that. So people, after the pandemic and a lot of hybrid work and remote only, organizations are kind of coming back to the to the office, in a in a larger degree. And, that, of course, is somewhat going back to normal, but it's still a new normal. I would say there are still some expectations that workers, they bring back with them. Also, in our field with the AB and technology field and, what kind of expectations they they have for the for the meeting rooms, for the technology, and, of course, also for why they they should go back. There's also a cultural element and a and a trust, I think, element, going on. And I think a lot of them also go there because they want the best tech technology to collaborate, even though that's a little bit of a overall statement and a little fluffy. I think many people, they they do that. So I think that that's that's one of the key trends that I see. Yeah. No. And I I I think following on from that, you know, in in the course of the conversation, we'll hit the technology where both of us can affect and impact that. And we'll also you know, I I think we should wrap up with some cultural, takes on it for for the individual at the individual level. Why does the individual find, going back into an office yet having some time from home, so effective? But at a high level, yeah, I think twenty twenty five is super interesting. I'm lucky enough to be involved in customer conversations every day. I think since, the new Trump administration has come in, they obviously put a heavy focus in North America on, government workers all returning to work. And then, that's given kind of an action point for the Fortune five hundred to be like, great. If the government's doing it, quite frankly, to our workers, you're doing it as well. And we're seeing a much more agile and driven and focused approach to people coming back in, and I think even to an extent, you know, I was speaking to one of the large CRM companies, and they're five days a week fully back in the office, all the way across the US. So I think that's exciting for us, Jonas. I think for both of our companies that presents a lot of opportunity. It presents a lot of opportunity for the industry and I think what we're starting to see is, a high adoption. There's the whole hot desking and hotelling thing, but, I've just I've just straight back into my office from Enterprise Connect. We're still in a major deficit of meeting rooms, Small meeting rooms where three, four, five people can come into those meeting rooms and have really fast agile, meetings. Now we were delighted to announce the PANICAS forty VBS, earlier on this year at ISE, which is an Android bar designed for that kind of six person and fewer meeting room. So we're getting significant interest in that. That's launching in the summer. I think when you start to look at a device like that in conjunction with, Airtame as a solution, that's giving a really nice holistic finish to the room. What at what level do you think Airtame you know, we could obviously provide great audio, great video, simple join experiences. But from an Airtame perspective, how are you tackling that small meeting room, that that six person meeting room, the one that's seeming to be very ubiquitous? Yeah. So we, going back to hybrid simplification, in some some ways, simplification and and hybrid simplification is very much what we try to bring through the meeting room and to the classrooms. And our approach is the user with their own device should be in control of the technology in the room across spaces. Like, that's where we live. So we all have a remote control in our pocket or in our back that we know how to operate. At least a lot of us know how to operate that. So so our take on simplifying, especially the small to medium sized rooms, as you mentioned, is how can I use my own device to get the meeting started? Whether that's a local meeting and I just need to share my screen to present the agenda, go through an Excel spreadsheet, whatever I need to do, That is super, super easy. Or start the the video call, which is, you know, almost all meetings now have a remote participant, so you need to start a call. What what Airteam tried to bring is a unified and very, very seamless experience no matter the video conferencing, service of choice. So whether you're invited for a Teams meeting or Zoom meeting, Google Meet, or Webex meeting, or whatever, you you you basically need to get started. You can do that with the with the Air Team, technology and an Air Team powered screen. So, so that's it brings a lot of flexibility to these small to medium sized rooms because we still see bring your own device as a huge trend and as an an increasing need for for a lot of spaces. So, we don't play where you can standardize on just one video conferencing service. And, of course, that's there's all of a lot of the organizations and meeting rooms where where that's in fact the case. You can dictate that we only use Teams even though we're invited for external meetings. It has to be on Teams. So the technology in the room should support that and should support that well. That's not where we play. We play where you need to support different preferences and being invited to different calls, but you still wanna use the same technology, meeting room screen, and create audio and video equipment in the room. No. I I think that's really key. And, you know, you've touched on what is one of my favorite topics at the moment, and that's BYOD. Because, you know, when we look at where the industry has gone over the last sort of eight years or so, it was, BYOD was very, hot. And then all of a sudden, there was a massive swing towards room systems. And then I'm seeing a huge swing, not away from room systems, but room systems being used. And when I say room system, I'm talking about Teams room that's on Android, Zoom room on Android, Zoom room on win Teams from some windows, whatever it might be. So a dedicated computing the room with a touch panel and controller. I think they are very much still here to stay, but I think what's exciting for both of us is more and more focus on HODL and small rooms that weren't necessarily gonna be video enabled, where organizations may potentially not wanna pay that full license fee for a room system. They still want video enabled. And more so than ever, those rooms are BYOD focused. So I think the average user's laptop, you know, I was at one of the big four consulting firms, down in Chicago not long ago. And, you know, they're all CarbonX ones and MacBook Pros. You know, they've really upped the game with the compute power in the in the employee's hand. And so they're saying if we're gonna spend some dollars there, we expect a great BYOD experience in those small, medium, small and focused huddle rooms. So do you still do you think that's where, in my mind, just thinking of your portfolio, that's where an Airtame hub into a simple screen suddenly makes that experience really nice. And then, one of one of the Jabra bars, maybe a p fifty, which is a a pure BYOD device or our new Pentacast forty VVS deployed in BYOD mode, that's a really nice alternative. Right? Yes. I mean, of course, preaching to the choir here, but, I would very much agree that that is, that is what we see and that is the the great combination because you have freedom to choose the audio and video that fits the room, the p fifty, the p forty, or other devices in the Jabra portfolio. So you have flexibility to fit your, preference, your, you know, the physical space, dimensions of the room, and your budget, etcetera. Right? But then there's still the Airtame hub, which is kind of the room, room PC, you can say, that sits behind the TV. The p fifty or p forty plugs into that, And you can unify the experience for the user so they they connect in the same way across rooms and across different video conferencing services. And you can also, unify, you can say, the experience and the technology from an IT perspective. So you can also simplify, the way you support the the meeting rooms and, and and unify. Like, also the support costs that tends to go down when we, based on our analysis, like, up to seven seventy or eighty percent. You can actually reduce IT tickets because you bring that seamless experience in, as far as any service. And I I think, you know, one of the things I'm focused on as I'm building out a new portfolio of products with my team, here at Jabra is is this BYOD that you know, when you think of hybrid simplification, it's not just in the meeting room. Okay? Obviously, we've got so let's say we've got users over here in Manhattan who are going into a meeting room, and it's with a third party vendor. And, it needs to be a Zoom meeting even though they're a Teams house. It's great because everyone's familiar with what's going on on the desktop. They're very comfortable with that and the users. But also at the remote end, there's nothing worse than being a remote user and having to join a a bridge or an unfamiliar meeting platform, that that those rooms have had to kind of shepherd and push people through. So it also makes it easier at the remote end as well. I fully fully agree. And to build on that, when I mean, one thing is that you if the technology kind of gets in the way, you waste time, both in the room and from remote participants just to get your meeting started. Right? That that that's an obvious thing. But there's still a lot of time wasted, you know, just to get the technology to work so you can get the meeting to to start. So so bringing that simplification principle in and and that seamless experience, you could simply cut the time it takes to to get your meeting started. But then as you also said, for the remote side, of course, it's important that, you get the meeting started, yes, but also that you almost have the same experience as the people in the room. Right? Was like the equitable, hybrid meetings trend that that we see. And that that's where Jabra comes in with great audio and video. So, so in addition to, of course, there are some people characteristics. There are some leadership principle almost here that you also need to bring to the room. So you treat the remote participants equal to those in the room. There's kind of a a meeting approach that you need to take. But that aside, if the technology actually empowers people to pretty much be on the on the same ground, that that's super important. And we think, last comment on this is, it's we would like to, like, eliminate dead ends for people. So it should be seamless, but we should also not get into a dead end where you're not even able to get started or where you're forced to use, for example, your own computer in the meeting room. And everybody has to huddle around that because you're not able to to rely on the in room technology screen and AV equipment. And that's a terrible experience. I think we we all know, situations where that happened. One hundred percent. And I think, you know, looking at the future trends and and how we move this forward together, as two companies that work in cooperation, when you are starting to talk about large environments that are out there, when you are starting to talk about, you know, a thousand rooms with, a thousand Airtame units. I know at Jabra, we're working very, very hard on Jabra Plus, and making sure that the management of our devices is very straightforward, being able to see serial numbers, being able to see simple, prompts when devices are offline, and, you know, we look at AI into how they can start to be remediated as well. I know from having, a good play around with your stuff, you guys have also focused heavily on a centralized remote management system. Can you can you share with us a little bit about, how that comes into the play? Yeah. Absolutely. And I would throw it back to you after afterwards. But, yes. There's a management platform, every, Airteam powered screen, whether that's our physical device or now also, simply, an APK, like an Android, Apple, Windows app that you can install on on third party hardware, all of that gets registered on our cloud platform, and then you can do, all the remote management from from from that side. And that's, of course, basic deployment, appearance of the screen, and allow users to, you know, very easily get started because you have clear instructions on the screen to to help them out, and also brand your screens. Right? You could also add, you know, your company DNA and and brand the look and feel to the screens. And, you know, update the software as all the device management things you could also do. You're also able to automate when screens should turn on the beginning of the day and off at the end of the day. So you also, they consume less less power, and you also kind of go into a more, environmentally friendly, setup. And then, proactively, you can be alerted kind of back to what you said if a device goes offline or somehow runs into an error. And we actually also rolled out recently that we also proactively will come with recommendations, for example, based on the local network strength or the whatever kind of parameter, we will also listen into that and and, proactively give IT recommend recommendations for how to improve the the setup. No. I think it I think that's great because I have so many conversations around all of your building out a a a great portfolio of products on the video side at Jabra. We've also got lots of Jabra personal peripherals throughout people's estate. How do we manage those and how do we come close to those? And I think again, I'm starting to see small changes and this is blanket because every organization is different. But I think if I go back to six years ago, there was very much this desire for a single pane of glass in terms of management platforms and how hybrid environments are managed. And my my inkling actually after some recent conversations, especially at Enterprise Connect is IT administrators are becoming a little more comfortable that maybe the single pane of glass is a utopian vision that we'll never get to. And as long as it's simple as having one browser open, maybe with two or three browser windows and then you're cycling through your devices and rooms, that's, that's an acceptable way to do it. And it actually gives you the greatest granular detail at device level. So viewing all of the Jabra management, on Jabra Plus and all of the Airtame management on your management platform gives you the most granular and the highest level of control, of those devices. So I think that's an interesting shift that I'm starting to see Yeah. Towards people becoming comfortable with that. Yeah. So so kind of to to build on that, do you do you think we will ever reach a one size fits all hybrid solution? No. In short, and the reason is, yes, we could we yes. Two companies like you or I could go out there and we could make one. Right? And we could make it that it virtually covers every angle. But the in my opinion, the truth of the matter is too many companies want to digest things, their way the way that they want to. So there there is there really a one size fits all? Yes. You could play the percentages game of having, solutions, both hardware and software that fit the majority of use cases, but there will also be always be outlier cases. So I think our role in this, movie that we're all sitting watching is, how do we make our solutions as digestible as possible for as many people as possible? How can they digest Jabra products, whether it's room, as room systems, as BYOD systems, BYOD systems powered through Airtame. You know, how do we make that as easy for as many use cases, as many people to do as possible? I think that's the value that we can bring. Yeah. Absolutely. And how what is Jepper's approach to that? So we're trying yeah. On a on a hardware level, all of our new, devices are Android based. Okay? Mhmm. So that means that we, are able to have a significant amount of processing power and edge AI on the device. So video processing, audio processing, all the algorithms and machine learning are going on on the device that allow us to have great audio quality, great picture quality. Okay? That means we've got a significant amount of horsepower. Now just because they're Android devices doesn't mean they have to be digested as Android devices. They could be digested as a BYOD device, but it's got the Android horsepower in the background. They could be connected into a Teams Rooms for Windows system. That's fine. So we want people to be able to digest them whether it's BYOD, Windows or Android, however they want to do it, they're going to have the same experience across all the devices and as we're bringing in, you know, you've got the P50 VBS, you've got the P40 VBS, which at launch will be BYOD and Android, but by the end of the years to be certified as a Team Drivens for Windows device as will the P50 VBS. And then we're, you know, we're also starting to look at more powerful BYOD devices that will still have that Android operating system in that Android layer that allows us to add a level of intelligence, and you can digest those devices any way you want. So for me, it's the full flexibility of having as fewer devices as possible in our portfolio that cover the most use cases that you can digest how you want. Right. I really like that. I think that's a that's a great approach. And when you when you when you said that, I'm curious, like, do you see any new use cases, you know, for example, since the pandemic, do you or or you turned use cases, but on the rise, have you seen a shift in the dominant use cases or new use cases coming about? I'm I I I I think to to go back on what I was saying, BYOD as a as a use case is is aggressively coming back into a lot of conversations. And you can see with Microsoft as well, they've they've put significant infrastructure into their BYOD join and how it works off the desktop. You know? I think, you you I'm starting to see some real hard fast use cases of large rooms, medium rooms, you know, ten person rooms where there's structured systems in there. They probably wanna run system. As we're moving into the smaller Huddl and focus rooms, it's becoming a heavy BYOD play, and, it's really coming in strong. And and, Al, do you see that within the same organization, or do you right. So the the large the larger the room, the more, you know, standardized room system you can go with, but the the smaller the room, basically, on spec Very much. Right. You know, what I'm seeing is if if, you know, I was on Manhattan the other day looking at a new skyscraper, and they had around eighty rooms that were dedicated meeting rooms, video rooms, ten person rooms, sixteen person rooms. Mhmm. And they were more than happy to put that room system in there with their license. Then there's two hundred Yeah. Small and focused huddle rooms. Okay? Mhmm. And and those rooms quite transparently, they wanted to be able to call a CDW or a big distributor and say, I want two fifty inches screens, two hundred simple BYOD devices, like a panicast fifty. And I would like to have two hundred Airtame hubs, and then it just takes care of itself. You know? That's how I'm starting to see environments build out. That in interesting. So do you also see that the ratio between the small to medium sized rooms and the larger rooms change? Organizations also restructuring, their, yeah, yeah, physical spaces. I'm seeing this small and medium play just getting getting larger and larger and larger. Mhmm. I think that that there's I mean, think yourself. How many meetings in the last calendar month have you been part of either remote or in person where there has been more than eighteen people in a meeting room? Right. Now for us, that's like our all hands or, like, product town halls or something where you take a full department, right, or the entire company. If, you know, aside from the board meeting maybe, but but I fully agree. You're probably talking less than five percent of your meetings in a month. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. To take the full organization. Exactly. Exactly. And so I think I'm in the same spot, mate. You know? And, so and then most people are like us. So that's probably the parameter for most people. Yet every day, I'm having meetings with three people in a meeting room, four people in a meeting room. Most of my meetings have got a few people in the meeting room, probably no more than six. So I think they're the threads. They're the themes that we're starting to see sort of really come to play. I just a final point while we while we wrap up. You know, culturally, I think as we're starting to see the stronger returns of the office, and and the hybrid play become more defined, culturally, how do you, you know, let's look at it from an employee level with Airtame, and let's look at it, you know, how are you finding employees or employees of customers that you're speaking to adjusting to this new return to the office? Because it's been quite some years now that everyone's had this full flexibility, and we're trying to, or or organizations are following them back. Do you think people are reacting well to it, or what's their reaction to it? Yeah. Well, I think it's a it's a mix. Right? There are there are different preferences. It depends on, you're more extroverted, introverted. What's your working style? What type of job do you have? Is it more is it an individual contributor? Do you need to problem solve by your own? Or is it a lot about, you know, collaboration and talking to people or, going on-site or whatever? Right? So I think it it depends on the type of of job and the and the personality. But what I see internally in our team, but also our in with our customer base is, there has been some sort of, built up tension in getting getting back and getting you know, working alongside your your colleagues. There there is a different energy. I think there is a different trust that you build between people. There's another type of glue and, you know, I think also creativity, environment that you can you can bring if you also have the little in between conversations, like all the water cooler stuff. I think it's difficult for water cooler conversation con conversations to happen if you're fully remote. Yeah. And I think people are finding that, a lot is built, you know, from from those. You know, there's small kind of, you know, alignments or ideas that kind of can can sparkle from from that and also, again, build building trust between different people also outside your your own teams and and outside departments and and and these things. So I think, generally, people prefer to come back at least for some of the time, but they would like to also hold on to some of the flexibility that was, that was kind of turned on full volume. Doing Yeah. I completely agree with you, and and that's what we're seeing. And I think this is where we can play a role. I think people are actually delighted to come back into the office on a regular basis. But but one of the caveats and what they expect now is that there's if I'm coming into the office, I wanna collaborate with people. I wanna get into meeting rooms, smallish meeting rooms, six to eight people. And I expect them to have the technology there that allows us to be effective in our collaboration. So, I think there's a huge onus on organizations to to equip those meeting rooms and make sure that it's worthwhile commute into the office and that you can act in a very collaborative manner. There you go. I think, my friend, that is, the clock has beaten us and time is where we're at, but, I appreciate your time so much. Good to catch up. Bye, Wes. And, Thanks for having me on. Promise. Yeah. I promise to make some time next time I'm in Denmark, and, we will get there. I'm just that, Allison. That's important. I missed you on a couple of occasions. That's my bad. But, no, fantastic conversation. Really appreciate it. Appreciate the partnership, and I think, it's an exciting twenty five and twenty six ahead of us, Jonas. Couldn't say it better. Thank you, Ollie. Appreciate it. Thank you. Take care. Bye bye. You too.