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

Speaker A: Foreign. Hello everybody. Welcome to uh, a great podcast, this time with Jabra, uh, and Airtame. Um, my name is Ollie Henderson, uh, head of product, uh, 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 going to go for it now. But Jonas Yellowkay.

Speaker B: Oh, that's close actually much closer than what I'm used to. Jonas Joloquoj.

Speaker A: So, ah, uh, there we go. Very good. Yeah, I was even getting coaching from some of my Danish colleagues. Jonas and I still, I still.

Speaker B: It doesn't help because it's Hungarian, honestly. So.

Speaker A: Ah, yeah, there we go. Very interesting, very interesting. But you are CEO right at that same time?

Speaker B: I used to be honestly, but uh, I'm more of a free role now. I'm a co founder so I've been here for 12 years, served uh, as CEO. Uh now I'm leading up strategic partnerships as the main thing, uh, and then market global marketing as well.

Speaker A: Good stuff, good stuff. And um, I know that uh, Chabra and uh, Airtame, uh, both work closely together. Great partners. So want to 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, um, especially pertaining to sort of this common ground or commonality of where we can be at with hybrid work situations. And I think that's pretty much where, where we can take our discussion today. So um, 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 100, 500 enterprise working? And uh, what in some of the conversations you've been having recently, uh, what, what's your uh, take on how the industry is, how companies are working, uh, where are they at in 25 into 26, Jonas?

Speaker B: Yeah, so uh, that's a big question and of course uh, I will kind of talk to some general trends. Uh, we spoke about this before as well. But there is a, a return to, to work trend going on. Uh, across the world. I would say us is probably leading, leading that. So people uh, after the pandemic and uh, a lot of hybrid work and remote only uh, organizations are kind of coming back to the, to the office, uh, in a, in a larger degree. And uh, that of course uh, 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, uh, also in our field, with the AV and technology field and uh, what kind of expectations 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 trust, I think, element, uh, going on. And uh, I think a lot of them also go there because they want the best technology to collaborate. Uh, even though that's a little bit of a overall statement and a little fluffy, I think many people, they do that. Um, so I think that that's, that's one of the key trends that I see.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, and I think following on from that, you know, 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 think we should wrap up with some cultural, uh, takes on it for, for the individual, at the individual level. Why does the individual find, uh, going back into an office yet having some time from home so effective, but at a high level? Yeah, I think 2025 is super interesting. Um, I'm lucky enough to be involved in customer conversations every day. I think since, uh, the new Trump administration has come in, they obviously put a heavy focus in North America on, um, government workers all returning to work. Um, and then, uh, that's given kind of um, an action point for the Fortune 500 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, um, agile and driven and focused approach to people coming back in. And I think even to an extent, uh, you know, I was speaking to, uh, one of the large CRM companies and they're five days a week fully back in the office, uh, 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, um, a high adoption, um, there's the whole hot desking and hoteling thing. But, uh, I'm 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, uh, meetings. Now we were delighted to announce the Panacast 40 VBS, um, earlier on this year at ISE, which is an Android bar designed for that kind of six person and fewer meeting room, um, 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 uh, airtame as a solution that's giving a really nice holistic finish to the room. Um, at ah, what level do you think airtame, you know we can obviously provide great audio, great video, simple join experiences. But from an airtane perspective, how are you tackling that small meeting room, that, that six person meeting room, the one that's seeming to be very ubiquitous?

Speaker B: Yeah, so we um, going back to hybrid simplification, uh, in some ways simplification and hybrid simplification is very much what we try to bring to the meeting room and to the classrooms. Um, 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, so we all have a remote control in our pocket or in our back that we know how to operate. Uh, at least a lot of us know how to operate that. 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 video call which is uh, almost all meetings now have a remote participant. Uh, so you need to start a call. Uh, what airtim tried to bring is a unified and very, very seamless experience, no matter the video conferencing, uh, service of choice. So whether you're invited for a teams meeting or Zoom meeting, Google Meet or WebEx meeting or whatever, you basically need to get started. You can do that with the AirTeam, uh, technology and an AirTeam powered screen. Uh, so that' 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 an increasing need for a lot of spaces. So we don't play where you can standardize on just one video conferencing service. And of course there's a lot of organizations and meeting rooms 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 want to use the same technology, meeting room screen and create audio and video equipment in the room.

Speaker A: No, I think that's really key. And you know, you've touched on what is one of my favorite topics at the moment. Um, 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, uh, BYOD was very, um, 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. It's on Android Zoom, room on Android Zoom, Room on Window, teams rooms on Windows, whatever it might be. So a dedicated compute in 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 and huddle and small rooms that weren't necessarily going to be video enabled, where organizations may potentially not want to 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, uh, you know, I was at one of the big four consulting firms, uh, down in Chicago not long ago and you know, they're all carbon X1s 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 going to spend some dollars there, we expect a great BYOD experience in those small, uh, medium small, uh, and focused huddle rooms. So do you still, do you think that's where, uh, 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, um, one of the Jabra bars, maybe a P50, which is a, a pure BYOD device, or our new Panacast 40 VBS deployed in BYOD mode. That's a really nice alternative. Right?

Speaker B: Yes. I mean, of course, preaching to the choir here, but uh, I would very much agree that uh, that is what we see and that is the great combination because you have freedom to choose the audio and video that fits the room, the P50, the P40, uh, or other devices in the Jabra portfolio. So you have flexibility to fit your preference, uh, your, you know, the physical space, uh, dimensions of the room, uh, and your budget et cetera right. Um, but then there's still the airtium hub which is kind of the uh, room PC you can say that sits behind the TV, the P50 or P40 plugs into that and you can unify the experience for the user so they connect in the same way across rooms and across different video conferencing services. And you can also unify uh, you can say the experience and the technology from an IT perspective. So you could also simplify uh, the way you support the meeting rooms and unify like uh, there's also the support costs that tends to go down when we uh, based uh, on our analysis, like up to 70 or 80%. You uh, can actually reduce it tickets because you bring that seamless experience in uh, across any service.

Speaker A: And I, I think um, you know, one of the things I'm focused on as I'm building out a new portfolio of products with my team, uh, 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 um, needs to be a zoom meeting. Even though they're a team's 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 bridge or an unfamiliar meeting platform, uh, that those rooms have had to kind of shepherd and push people through. Um, so it also makes it easier at the remote end as well.

Speaker B: I fully agree. And to build on that, um, one thing is that if the technology kind of gets in the way, you waste time, uh, both in the room and from remote participants just to get your meeting started. Right. That's an obvious thing. Uh, but there's still a lot of time wasted just to get the technology to work so you can get the meeting to start. So bringing that simplification principle in and that seamless experience, you can simply cut the time it takes to get your meeting started. But then as you also said, um, for the remote side, of course it's important that uh, 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 uh, meetings trend that we see. Uh, and that's where Jabra comes in with Great audio and video. So, so uh, in addition to of course there are some people characteristics, there's 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 meeting uh, approach that you need to take. Um, but that aside, if the technology actually empowers people to pretty much be on the same ground, that's super important. And we think, last comment on this is it's, we would like to um, uh, 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 everyone has to huddle around that because you're not able to uh, uh, rely on the in room technology screen and AV equipment. And that's a terrible experience. Uh, I think we, we all know

Speaker A: situations uh, where that happened 100% and I think you know, looking at the future trends and, and how we move this forward together, uh, as two companies that work in cooperation. When you are starting to talk about large environments that are out there, ah, when you are starting to talk about you know, a thousand rooms with uh, a thousand airtame units. I know at Jabra we're working very uh, big, very hard on Jabra plus uh, and making sure that the management of our devices is very straightforward. Being able to see serial numbers, being able to see simple uh, prompts when devices are offline and uh, you know we're looking at AI into how they can start to be remediated as well. Um, I know from having um, a good play around with your stuff, you guys have also focused heavily on a centralized remote management system. Um, can you, can you share with us a little bit about how that comes into the play?

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And I would throw it back to you after, afterwards but um, yes, there's a management platform, uh every uh, EARTM powered screen, whether that's our physical device or now also uh, simply uh, an APK like an Android app or Windows app that you can install on third party hardware. All of that gets registered on our cloud platform and then you can do uh, all the remote management from that side. And that's of course basic deployment appearance of the screen. You know, allow users to you know very easily get started because you have clear instructions on the screen to, to help them out. Um, and also brand your screens. Right. You could also add uh, you know, your company DNA and brand and look and feel to the screens, um, and no, 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 uh, they consume less power and you also kind of go into a more uh, environmentally friendly uh, setup. Uh, and then proactively you can be alerted kind of back to what you said if a uh, 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 weather, whatever kind of parameter. We will also listen into that and proactively give it um, recommendations for how to improve the setup.

Speaker A: No, I think that's great because I have so many conversations around Ollie. You're building out a great portfolio of products on the video side at Jabra. Um, we've also got lots of Jabra personal peripherals, um, uh, 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. Um, 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. Um, and m. 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 as 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 uh, that's an acceptable way to do it. And it actually gives you the greatest granular detail at a device level. So doing all of the Jabra management uh, on Jabra plus and all, all of the airtane management on your management platform gives you the most granular and the highest level of control uh, of those devices. So I think that's an interesting shift that I'm starting to see, uh, towards people becoming comfortable with that.

Speaker B: Yes. So kind of to build on that. Do you think we will ever reach a uh, one size fits all hybrid solution?

Speaker A: No. In short, um, 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 uh, their way, the way that they want to. So there is there really a one size fits all? Yes. You could play the percentages game of having ah, 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 um, movie that we're all sitting watching is um, 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, uh, as room systems as BYOD systems. BYOD systems powered through airtane, um, 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.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And what is Jepper's approach to that?

Speaker A: So we're trying. Yeah. On a hardware level all of our new uh, devices are Android ah based. Okay. So that means that we um, are able to have a significant amount of processing power and edge AI on the device. So video processing, audio processing, um, 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 uh, 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 that Android horsepower in the background. They could be connected into a teams from 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 year is to be certified as a teams runs Windows device as will the P50 VBS. Um, 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 the Android layer that allows us to add a ah, level of intelligence, uh, 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.

Speaker B: Right. I really like that. I think that's a That's a great approach. And when you, when you, when you said that, uh, I'm curious, do you see any new use cases, uh, for example, since the pandemic, or current use cases but on the rise, have you seen a shift in the dominant use cases or new use cases coming about?

Speaker A: I think to go back on what I was saying, BYOD as a use case is aggressively coming back into a lot of conversations. Uh, and you can see with Microsoft as well, they've put significant infrastructure into their BYOD join and how it works off the desktop. You know, I think, um, you, you, I'm starting to see some real hard, fast use cases of large rooms, medium rooms, you know, 10 person rooms where there's structured systems in there. They probably want a room system. As we're moving into the smaller huddle and focus rooms, it's becoming a heavy BYOD play and uh, it's really coming in strong.

Speaker B: And, and I'll do see that within the same organization. Uh, 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

Speaker A: on the spectrum very much.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: 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 80 rooms that were dedicated meeting rooms, video rooms, 10 person rooms, 16 person rooms, and they were more than happy to put their room system in there with their license. Then there's 200, uh, small and focused huddle rooms. Okay. And those rooms, quite transparently, they wanted to be able to call a CDW or a big distributor and say, I want 250 inch screens, 200 simple BYOD devices like a Panacast 50 and I would like to have 200 AirTame Hubs. And then it just takes care of itself. You know, that's how I'm starting to see environments build out that.

Speaker B: Interesting. So do you also see that the ratio between the small to medium sized rooms and the larger rooms change? Uh, organizations also restructuring, uh, their physical spaces.

Speaker A: I'm seeing this small and medium play just getting, getting larger and larger and larger. Uh, I think 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 18 people in the meeting room.

Speaker B: Right. DeVos, that's like our all hands or like product town halls or something where you take a full department. Right. Or the entire company. Uh, if, you know, aside from the board meeting, maybe but, but I fully agree.

Speaker A: You're probably talking less than 5% of your meetings in a month.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. You have to take the full organization. Exactly, exactly.

Speaker A: And so I think I'm in the same spot mate, you know. And um, so. And then most people are like us. So that's probably the parameter for m. Most people, yeah. Every day I'm having meetings with three people in a meeting room, four people in a meeting room. Most uh, of my meetings have got a few people in the meeting room, uh, 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 think, um, 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, um, and, and the hybrid play become more defined culturally. How do you, you know, uh, let's look at it from an employee level with airtame. And let's look at it, you know, um, 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 uh, or organizations are funneling them back. Do you think people are reacting well to it or what's their reaction to it?

Speaker B: Well, I think it's a mix. Right. 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 at as an individual contributor? Do you need to problem solve by your own, uh, or is it a lot about collaboration and talking to people or uh, going on site or whatever? Right. So I think it depends on the type of job and the personality. Um, but what I see internally in airteam, but also with our customer base is um, there has been some sort of uh, built up tension in getting, getting back and uh, getting, you know, working alongside your, your colleagues. Uh, there is a different energy. I think there is a different trust that you build between people. There's a, another type of glue and uh, you know, I think also create creativity, uh, environment that you can, you can bring if you also have the little in between conversations, like all the water cooler stuff. Think it's difficult for water cooler conversation conversations to happen if you are fully remote. Um, and I think people are finding that uh, a lot is built from those. There's small kind of alignments or ideas that kind of can sparkle from that and also, again, building trust between different people, also outside your own teams and, uh, outside departments and these things. So I think generally, um, 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, uh, that was kind of turned, uh, on full volume.

Speaker A: Yeah, I completely agree with you. 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. One of the caveats and what they expect now is that there's. If I'm coming into the office, I want to collaborate with people. I want to get into meeting rooms, smallish meeting rooms, six to eight people. Um, and I expect them to have the technology there that allows us to be effective in our collaboration. So, uh, I think there's a huge onus on, um, organizations to equip those meeting rooms and make sure that it's a worthwhile commute into the office and that you can, in a very collaborative manner. I think, my friend, that, uh, the clock has beaten us and time is where we're at. But, um, I appreciate your time so much. Good to catch up.

Speaker B: Um, thanks for having me.

Speaker A: Promise. Yeah, I promise to make some time next time I'm in Denmark. And, uh, we will get there. Uh, don't.

Speaker B: Don't edit that out. That's important.

Speaker A: I've missed you on a couple of occasions. That's my bad. Um, but no. Fantastic conversation. Really appreciate it. Appreciate the partnership. And I think, uh, it's an exciting 25 and 26 ahead of us.

Speaker B: Jonas, couldn't say it better. Thank you, Ollie. Appreciate it.

Speaker A: Thank you. Take care.

Speaker B: Bye.

Speaker A: Bye. You.