Microsoft Teams Insider
Microsoft Teams discussions with industry experts sharing their thoughts and insights with Tom Arbuthnot of Empowering.Cloud. Podcast not affiliated, associated with, or endorsed by Microsoft.
Microsoft Teams Insider
Microsoft Teams Rooms, BYOD and making the right choices with MVP Randy Chapman
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Randy Chapman, Microsoft MVP and Solutions Engineer at Logitech, shares his views on the current state of meeting rooms and BYOD, including manageability of devices at scale and the increasing importance of sustainability for customers when selecting room solutions.
- Different options for bring-your-own-device (BYOD)
- The challenges of updating and managing BYOD devices at scale
- Importance of hardware quality and reliability when choosing room collaboration devices
- A growing emphasis on sustainability in the industry
Tom
Welcome back to the Teams Insider podcast. This week we have my good friend Randy Chapman, fellow MVP and, a big face in the community particularly here in the UK. must have known him for coming on a decade now. He is a solutions engineer at Logitech Video Solutions Engineer, and we get into what's going on in the market, his thoughts on BYoD and managed BYoD.
00:31:19:05 - 00:31:35:08
Tom
And we just get a little bit of a history of his journey in the space. I really hope you enjoy the show and many thanks to Randy for taking the time on with the show. Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. I've been looking forward to this one. It's been a while since, me and Randy have spoken on a podcast.
00:31:35:08 - 00:31:48:00
Tom
I think in previous lives you've been on previous different podcast together. So great to have him on this one. I'm sure most of the listeners know who Randy Chapman is, but, for those who don't, Randy, just want to introduce yourself and, give us some background.
00:31:48:02 - 00:31:58:15
Randy
Yeah, thanks. Some for having me. yeah. As you said, it's been a been a little while. You were a guest on my my own podcast. probably a good couple of years ago now. We were due for another.
00:31:58:15 - 00:32:06:02
Tom
It's crazy how time flies, isn't it? We, we have lots of conversations at shows and off line, but we need to do some more pods together because it's always good fun.
00:32:06:04 - 00:32:30:17
Randy
It is? Yeah. I mean, you and I have known each other for probably the best part of a decade. Really? I think I met you at one of the shows many years ago. Probably the MUCUGL along the way as well. So I've been going to that for quite a long, long time. So to my background, basically, my personal brand that I've had for the last, I guess, four years, maybe five years, something like that is UCStatus, as you can see from the lower thirds I've got here.
00:32:30:19 - 00:33:02:08
Randy
I kind of started that with the, with the notion of having, you know, kind of a team's new show, podcast and all that sort of thing. I originally started blogging under the Lyncaverse, moniker, when Lync was a thing. but my career goes back even further. So, I kind of came to the UK, got a job as a security guard, eventually ended up in, distribution sales, kind of tele sales originally, and then kind of moved on from there and then started doing stuff with telephony.
00:33:02:08 - 00:33:29:22
Randy
So 1999 or thereabouts, I got, qualified and certified to do what was Lucent Network Alchemy, which became a via IP office. not long after that did PBX installs for, a number of years alongside doing some other stuff. eventually ended up as a sales manager whilst also doing technical stuff in a very, very small company.
00:33:30:00 - 00:33:54:11
Randy
from a, run by a good friend of mine out in East Grinstead. A little shout out to Kogo and Martin Bannister, kind of gave me my start and then, you know, did a lot of a via there, moved out of sales because sales is a is a is a fickle beast as as I'm sure everybody can appreciate and decided to just go to the ground floor and become a techie.
00:33:54:11 - 00:34:21:02
Randy
So first line help desk, you know, from sales manager to first line help desk, resetting passwords, setting up ad, you know, credentials. The first ad account that I set up had to be deleted and done again because I did it wrong. That's how that's how terrible it was. I read all the Microsoft Blue books. I could I could find I actually got the the 2003, server MCSE kit, which is a huge foundation of everything.
00:34:21:04 - 00:34:24:11
Tom
So the big lead when it came with the big Bible books, like.
00:34:24:13 - 00:34:50:11
Randy
Yeah, it was like, yeah, it was. Yeah. I had to stop having to get it delivered to London. And then I had to carry it back home on the tube and train and stuff. But, yeah. So I read that from cover to cover, which gave me a massive grounding in everything. Microsoft, you know, added Dhcp, DNS, security, Firewalling everything, which again, going with my voice background also kind of was a springboard into what was to come.
00:34:50:13 - 00:35:17:16
Randy
I started doing OCS, probably R1, admin a little bit, although I had been a user of, exchange messenger back 2000, LCS, all the various, variations when they were separate, obviously OCS, OC, CSR two. I started playing a little more with it. You know, you had to log on to every different server to actually get it, every interface.
00:35:17:18 - 00:35:34:23
Randy
so actually troubleshoot anything. And then Lync 2010 was when I really started kind of getting into it in a big way. So CEO of the company I was working for at the time sent me on a global knowledge training course and then said, and and the week after you're installing, yeah, you're.
00:35:34:23 - 00:35:38:15
Tom
An expert now. You don't slack off, you get.
00:35:38:17 - 00:35:57:01
Randy
So I did, a little a call, a very little Lync install, of about 9 or 10 users for a company in, in Hersham in London. and yeah, again, there were about 8 or 9 users or something like that. They actually ended up with more servers than they had users, because of all the roles and everything.
00:35:57:01 - 00:36:21:13
Randy
And then, dialogic, SBA gateway, ISDN trunks migrating actually from an Avia IP office, funnily enough, which was which was good fun. And then I did a number of other Lync installs, like 2013 came along, Skype for Business came along. Yeah. And kind of got out of the install and kind of running part of a company, but bit, over to pure pre-sales.
00:36:21:13 - 00:36:51:05
Randy
And I've been doing pure architecture and pre-sales of Microsoft UC stuff, I guess since about, 2005, something like that. Around the time I started blogging. and then. Yeah, fast forwarding, just so we don't eat up all the time with this is, you know, I properly rebranded to UCStatus is about four years ago, after I was in hospital for, gallbladder surgery.
00:36:51:07 - 00:37:12:07
Randy
hospital, three weeks in Cardiff. And then, you know, I kind of ditched the whole Lyncaverse first thing went over to the to the UCStatus thing, started really kind of putting my foot down in terms of content blogging, you know, a couple of times a week. Not quite. Tom Arbuthnot level. but, you know, we we have somewhere to aim.
00:37:12:09 - 00:37:18:17
Randy
more YouTube. the podcast obviously got involved with Commsverse as well. if you.
00:37:18:19 - 00:37:29:08
Tom
Really consistent with it, I haven't you that UCStatus and podcast. It's been, yeah. It's followed you through a few different roles and then and. Yeah, yeah, it's still running strong. The podcast is great. I love the podcast very conversational.
00:37:29:09 - 00:37:43:12
Randy
The podcast has been going, oh, it's a little over four years. I can't believe it. You know, 50 something episodes, which is too few. I think we probably could do it more often, but as you've been involved in podcasts for at least 10 or 15 years, you know how it is trying to here.
00:37:43:13 - 00:38:01:05
Tom
Yeah, it takes it takes more work than you think. And even just getting people together and schedules and producing and, yeah, we're trying to stick to weekly now, which is I can only do because we have, you know, people in Empowering Cloud helping coordinate and manage it. Otherwise it's it just doesn't happen. But, yeah, it's great.
00:38:01:05 - 00:38:10:20
Randy
Right? Yeah, yeah. And that's it. I mean, I'm Microsoft MVP for five years. Got my blue blue disc. last year hope to get renewed again this year. You know.
00:38:10:22 - 00:38:18:02
Tom
And you know, you're more focused on the the room space. Obviously your current role at Logi of you very, very focused as well. Yeah. On that.
00:38:18:07 - 00:38:31:02
Randy
But been at Logi for just over two years and yeah obviously I bring the knowledge that I gained in previous roles, you know, putting together designs and, you know, global room deployments and stuff like that.
00:38:31:02 - 00:38:38:19
Tom
So slightly, slightly different scale at Logi. Yeah, it's a, massive organization working with massive organizations and,
00:38:39:00 - 00:39:08:05
Randy
Yeah, the previous company, some of the biggest installs we were doing or kind of 4 or 500, rooms, that sort of thing. But lots of countries, 40, 50 countries. Yeah. but you know, now it's, you know, five, 5000, 10,000 is not uncommon, some kind of, deployments. And when you look at the the scale of Microsoft Teams, obviously Teams is the bulk of what, our customers have, at MTR or Microsoft Teams rooms on the side of that.
00:39:08:07 - 00:39:10:17
Randy
you know, they just announced, what is it, a million.
00:39:10:19 - 00:39:25:01
Tom
Yeah, million, million Teams Rooms now. Yeah. Which is it was announced, 500,000 was January 2023, announced in the quarterly results, and now it's a million. So it's, on a real growth trajectory as well.
00:39:25:03 - 00:39:34:03
Randy
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's it's enormous. You know, obviously we sell absolute ton of all the different solutions. And there's what, 12 OEMs now in the market.
00:39:34:03 - 00:40:01:02
Tom
I'd say I'm interested your perspective now because for kind of in this role you're obviously dealing with multiple, multiple platforms as well, just BYoD So that'd be great to get your view on what you see in customers in terms of, you know, what's important to you. The again, Logi’s interesting because you've got a range of solutions, you know, like headset, BYoD, personal devices and rooms, do you cover all of that stuff, a subset of that stuff?
00:40:01:02 - 00:40:01:11
Tom
How does that.
00:40:01:11 - 00:40:21:10
Randy
Work? Everything. You know, everything you know, everything B2B, business to business. So everything from keyboards, mice, headsets, webcams all the way up through to the rooms and, and and even side kind of devices like, you know, the Tap scheduler, which is the Teams panel, but also, you know, room scheduling panel, you want to call it that, digital signage a little bit.
00:40:21:12 - 00:40:41:00
Randy
you know, roommate kind of touches on the digital signage because you can integrate with app space and stuff. And then the Dock Flex, which is, desk booking, docking station, bit of hardware sort of thing running the Teams pal interface. but, yeah, I mean, as you said, you know, there's no there's no right or wrong thing when it comes to rooms.
00:40:41:02 - 00:40:58:23
Randy
You want to have a meeting in a room. You know, the most common thing you can have is the walls. I guess a table and chairs, the screen or two the front. Yeah. and then there variations of equipment you could put in there. I mean, we've been doing this long enough that we've probably seen webcams, you know, the trusty Logitech C930.
00:40:58:23 - 00:40:59:12
Randy
I've seen that.
00:40:59:12 - 00:41:03:15
Tom
In more room. You have just a USB cable trailing around.
00:41:03:17 - 00:41:17:03
Randy
Correct. You know, I had one customer who was actually using the microphones built into the C9 30. Wow. About 2.5m away. and, you know, to be fair to them, they said it was terrible. And I, I can kind of guess why it was designed for that.
00:41:17:03 - 00:41:18:20
Tom
Yeah, yeah.
00:41:18:22 - 00:41:25:13
Randy
but, you know, the C930 was bundled with even Poly, the visual plus. Oh, yeah.
00:41:25:15 - 00:41:28:07
Tom
Yeah, yeah. The old evil Android box. Yeah.
00:41:28:09 - 00:41:43:03
Randy
Yeah. Exactly. That was, that was bundled with that for the, for the longest time. And I've seen, you know, deployed in really big rooms. But you know, Logi’s history with Teams Rooms is kind of an interesting one. Logi came out with the first, all in one AV soundbar. You reviewed it when it first came out.
00:41:43:03 - 00:41:48:18
Randy
I remember the Meet up. Yep. it's just surpassed 1 million sold, isn't it?
00:41:48:18 - 00:42:08:10
Tom
Isn't that amazing? Like, or that device like, is it going to give you some idea, again, of the scale of, what's going on out there in terms of those devices? Exactly. I just feel tons. I've, I've still got my unit somewhere. I think it's a home in one of the rigs, but yeah, it's, Yeah, yeah, it's, it was almost ahead of its time in terms of if you look at where we are now with bars and, and how it was.
00:42:08:11 - 00:42:22:21
Randy
It changed the game completely. you know, going from a webcam over to something, you know, a bar, and now everybody has a bar, you know, everybody has at least one bar in their portfolio. Even, you know, people that you would never think to have a bar. Barco, for instance, I've got a bar, you know, everybody's got a bar.
00:42:22:21 - 00:42:24:08
Tom
Everyone has a bar right now.
00:42:24:09 - 00:42:32:02
Randy
Yeah, everyone has a bar. So it's it's no good differentiator on the bar. The specs shoot out of how many megapixels and things you have. There's a lot of what.
00:42:32:04 - 00:42:35:03
Tom
Logi were there from the start with the, you know.
00:42:35:03 - 00:42:35:19
Randy
The project, right?
00:42:35:19 - 00:42:53:21
Tom
So, yeah, the project Rigel and the surface dock and, Yeah. Yeah. Like so it's amazing to see how fast Logi had become such a big part of our world in terms of rooms and devices like, you know, it's it's a pretty amazing journey in the time frame as well. I think.
00:42:53:23 - 00:43:11:13
Randy
It is. You know, being being first is sometimes gives you a little bit of an advantage. But, you know, sometimes sitting back and waiting for others, you know, and everybody growing, you know, competition is good. You know. Yeah. You know, it makes everybody in the whole industry and what's going in the rooms actually grow as well, which is, which is really good.
00:43:11:13 - 00:43:14:02
Randy
I think it's just healthy that way.
00:43:14:04 - 00:43:33:18
Tom
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So what? So, I guess again, only certain customers get engaged with you depending on scale and complexity or whatever else. But what's your general thoughts on what's going on out there in terms of people, strategies of rooms, BYoD platforms? What are you seeing?
00:43:33:20 - 00:43:57:11
Randy
Yeah, I mean, so so my role as a solutions engineer, I look after a couple of the high touch account managers, one global account manager, and, you know, customers that I typically look after are kind of, you know, thousand users and up to, you know, I think our largest or my largest customer is probably edging toward 350, 400,000 users, something like that, massive global kind of organizations.
00:43:57:11 - 00:43:57:19
Tom
Yeah.
00:43:57:19 - 00:44:20:03
Randy
And it's a real mix. You know, when you look at platforms, specific rooms, MTR is about 80, probably 80, 85%, you know, it's it fluctuates every, every now and then of the the stuff that we do on a platform, and then, you know, probably 10 or 12% something like that is Zoom. But the zoom customers I have are absolutely enormous.
00:44:20:05 - 00:44:45:02
Randy
You know, they'll they'll reach into the thousands of thousands of rooms where some of the Teams, ones, you know, you add them all up, you know, hundreds and hundreds and, you know, thousands and things like that. You know, 10,000 is not uncommon. Yeah. But, but BYoD dwarfs all of them, you know, so things like the meet up, just a USB camera plugged in, you know, with cables across the table, plugged into your laptop and bring your own meeting on your laptop.
00:44:45:02 - 00:44:48:11
Randy
Yeah, that dwarfs all of the platforms.
00:44:48:13 - 00:45:09:06
Tom
which which is like Microsoft kind of like like I feel like BYoD was the, the enemy for a long while. And that was the one true path was MTR, And obviously Microsoft are still very much MTR Is the premium experience the best experience? The one big difference, but it feels like Microsoft are, accepting much more without that BYoD is a reality for alot
00:45:09:06 - 00:45:15:17
Tom
of rooms are trying to provide optimization for that scenario. Have you seen that same thing reflected with with customers.
00:45:15:19 - 00:45:33:00
Randy
1000% Probably. You know, as you said, it was kind of a swear word before and there was two schools of thought when BYoD, BYoD was either, you know, an HDMI cable from your screen or some sort of screen caster to get your laptop screen on the display. plus it was also, you know, some form of audio.
00:45:33:00 - 00:45:50:07
Randy
It could have been a puck in the room, you know, USB puck, and it could have been a webcam or maybe just an all in one bar, like the meet up, or any of the other bars that are out there, as you know. Yeah. you know, that's one form of BYoD it's probably the messiest. And that's the one that Microsoft are not attacking.
00:45:50:09 - 00:46:02:14
Randy
Attacking is too aggressive, but, you know, trying to solve, for customers because the last thing you want to do is go into a meeting room, plug in multiple cables to try and join your meeting. It's just, you know, it's.
00:46:02:14 - 00:46:21:02
Tom
Yeah. And that's the thing that was the old school word is literally HDMI. And people would, you know, it wouldn't know which way it goes in. And did the laptop even have an HDMI port? And like you say, secondary, a USB, I and then we had a weird period of time where the laptops all started dropping, dropping ports, and did you even have HDMI?
00:46:21:04 - 00:46:39:22
Tom
It feels like, yeah, certainly from my point of view, I'd love you to kind of, agree or disagree. It feels like we turned a big corner with usb-C because now it's it's power display audio, like it's so much. Yeah. Everybody, I mean, technology generally, even Apple were folding and converging onto usb-C, so it becomes a correct.
00:46:39:22 - 00:46:46:05
Tom
Yeah, I kind of understood standard for I can plug a thing in and get multiple, you know, capabilities out of it.
00:46:46:07 - 00:47:18:14
Randy
Yeah, exactly. And you know, so the kind of multiple cable BYoD, the way to clean that up is to put a common interface. And as you said, it's either Usb-a, usb-C, you know, the likes of Barco Immersive Airtame. There's a number of companies out there that do these, kind of converged devices. Even Logi kind of has one that's called the switch, which is Usb-a and usb-C from a switching hub that you plug all your audio and kind of pass through to your screens and that can integrate, you know, can be done standalone, or it could just be done, you know, as part of a bigger solution.
00:47:18:15 - 00:47:41:07
Randy
Then there's the other side of it is there's actually going from a standard space thing from Teams or Zoom or, you know, Google Room. And then for those other types of meetings where direct guest join isn't quite the experience that you want. then there's BYoD actually temporarily switching to BYoD, kind of borrowing the camera mic and speakers.
00:47:41:08 - 00:47:47:13
Randy
that's huge as well. You know, using things like the switch or even the Barco version two or a number of other things.
00:47:47:13 - 00:48:12:18
Tom
Even I feel like really, it's a really great failsafe as well. Like, you know, there's, yeah, there's there's these really dominant players in, in Microsoft, Cisco and Zoom, but there's a huge long tail of other providers as well. And, and depending on what country you're in or industry you're in and can be bigger or small. So knowing you've got that safety net of if a laptop can join, I can plug in and join the meeting at least is is a really good safety net.
00:48:12:20 - 00:48:36:11
Randy
Yeah. And and that's it. So there's the you know permanent multi cable messy BYoD which is definitely what Microsoft is trying to address with their inexpensive MTR that they're trying to bring into the market. you know, that sort of thing that the kind of easy cheap ish upgrade to go to, you know, to a one touchpoint experience, kind of a better than, better than multi cable BYoD.
00:48:36:13 - 00:48:49:01
Randy
There's temporary BYoD again that's huge. That's you know almost every room you know. Yeah I'd say 60-70% of rooms will have some sort of temporary BYoD flip which is, which is which is fun.
00:48:49:03 - 00:49:08:04
Tom
I feel like we've, we've converged on a really bad name for this scenario as well, BYoD, because you talk to certain people in enterprises and they're like, oh, it's bring your own devices in, bring your personal laptop or personal phone. And we're like, well, no, you bring your bring your corporate device to a corporate room and plug it in is really what we're mostly talking about here.
00:49:08:06 - 00:49:30:13
Randy
Yeah. I mean, some people say BYoM bring bring your own meeting and then the device is kind of irrelevant because, you know, with a lot of these BYoD, whatever, whatever you want to call it, whatever acronym you want to kind of give it. all you need is something to plug in. And sometimes you don't even need that, you know, if you can use, over the air kind of services as well.
00:49:30:15 - 00:49:31:13
Tom
Yeah. Kind of casting.
00:49:31:13 - 00:49:57:03
Randy
Some of those things are kind of think. Mark. Yeah, yeah. And that's where, you know, MTR and and others will, you know, with the QR codes and stuff, being able to cast your screen if you just want to share your screen, being able to quickly drive a meeting from your from your mobile phone these days, about as you said, you know, even Apple or converging on the USBc being able to plug your iPhone or iPad into a USBc interface to borrow the camera, mic and speakers, you know.
00:49:57:05 - 00:50:23:11
Tom
That are interesting to see that come because our phones have so much horsepower now. And it frustrates me. I still see, you know, in customers sometimes people huddled around a, a mobile phone on speaker phone in the room and I'm like, there's a room system right there, but they just run it and press the button. So yeah, the thought of being able to plug in USBc to an Android or an iPhone and have that be the brain of the meeting is a really interesting scenario, actually.
00:50:23:12 - 00:50:44:00
Randy
Well, in my testing, the only thing that doesn't work is the replacement of the camera. So you could stream your screen and plug do that. You can actually output the, you know, YouTube video or whatever media you've got onto the speakers and into the meeting. But the only thing you can't do is actually use the room camera as your iPhone or iPad camera, at least in testing.
00:50:44:00 - 00:50:46:10
Randy
Now, I don't have an Android.
00:50:46:10 - 00:50:50:00
Tom
An interesting I it feels like Android would be open to that conceptually, wouldn't that?
00:50:50:00 - 00:51:10:05
Randy
I suppose more than likely. Yeah. And, you know, on that subject, you know, obviously MTR as you said, started with the surface in a dock, moved on to the NUC and now everybody has a small form factor PC and MTR on windows is kind of the the hero thing. But what about collab bars or trend?
00:51:10:09 - 00:51:10:17
Tom
Yeah.
00:51:10:17 - 00:51:17:22
Randy
Collab. Who would have thought the Microsoft would open the doors to Android? You know the yeah the the evil kind of competitor of Google.
00:51:17:22 - 00:51:37:14
Tom
You know it's interesting isn't it. An a big thing. And under the Satya regime is being more, more open to open source more where a multi-vendor platform, you know, more support for Apple in terms of the iOS office and then, you know, Mac support and Android kind of falls on that banner now and not not a topic for this podcast, a whole nother point that we've got coming up, actually.
00:51:37:14 - 00:51:47:16
Tom
But now with Microsoft producing their own Android variant as well, these, shows how far we've come in terms of embracing the Android story.
00:51:47:18 - 00:51:57:04
Randy
Yeah. I mean, I guess they famously did that with Linux a little while ago to kind of give up their own. What have you called the distro, I guess. Yeah, that kind of didn't go anywhere.
00:51:57:06 - 00:52:23:10
Tom
Yeah. It'll be interesting to see how the Android thing goes and how it is accepted by the device community and the, the kind of wider community as well, going back to BYoD with something that comes up a lot is the challenges around update. You know, most devices, if not all devices these days ship on firmware X and immediately have X dot one because like, we're still polishing and learning like what's the the story there?
00:52:23:10 - 00:52:30:06
Tom
I mean, from your perspective more generally, but with Logi as well around updating those devices, how does that work?
00:52:30:08 - 00:52:54:09
Randy
Yeah, I mean, if you're going to run, you know, a device that has, an operating system that connects to a, a management platform, then it becomes enterprise, manageable. So, you know, picking Logi obviously we got the bars, you know, the, the rally bar, huddle mini and bar and then obviously, you know, meet up at or not meet up, but, roommate kind of isn't included in that in terms of a standalone BYoD device.
00:52:54:09 - 00:53:10:20
Randy
But, you know, if you just want to use a huddle mini or a bar in a room as a BYoD device, as long as they have an internet connection, whether it's wired or wireless, and they have a connection into sync, which is the management cloud, you can update them, see the health and change settings and do all that sort of thing remotely.
00:53:10:22 - 00:53:25:16
Randy
And it's the same for all. A lot of the other vendors that have those things, if it's if it's capable of being a standalone BYoD or USB device, enterprise managerable, and being able to kind of connect it to the cloud is a huge thing.
00:53:25:18 - 00:53:40:18
Tom
So that's a really important distinction you just made. There actually has to kind of at least two classes of BYoD there's the it's a USB only, and you're going to have to physically go to that device to flash it somehow with the client. And then there's yeah, I like your process manager.
00:53:40:18 - 00:53:42:13
Randy
It's a classic example of that. Yeah.
00:53:42:15 - 00:53:50:04
Tom
or IP connected in some way, probably Wi-Fi, possibly wired. And then it becomes a manageable device like any other manageable device.
00:53:50:06 - 00:54:24:02
Randy
Yeah. I mean, there's tons of meet ups and rally systems out there that are that are probably on really, really old firmware, you know, from, from yesteryear, they're probably experiencing issues. that would have been solved. Yeah, yeah. On multiple iterations of firmware since. So, you know, for people that are listening and I know there are people that will be if you do have a device that's on, you know, having having some issues with, you know, plug it into your laptop, run the sync client, which is free, and just check for updates, install any updates on it.
00:54:24:04 - 00:54:27:09
Randy
and, you know, maybe we'll be able to solve a problem for you.
00:54:27:11 - 00:54:50:13
Tom
And does that, does that come up in the conversation when customer because I feel like that often with some of the customers I talk about, It get skipped over the, the in the total cost of ownership conversation around, are you going to have an IT Pro run around these rooms and flash them? And, and the reality is that actually going to happen versus having a, a manageable BYoD scenario or an, an MTR of room scenario?
00:54:50:15 - 00:55:08:09
Randy
Yeah, it depends on the size of the company and the complexity of everything they have. You know, the a lot of the customers that I have, the bigger customers, it's all change, control, you know, even to install, you know, update on a, on a couple of test devices, there's a change that goes in, right? They get schedule and plan for a specific date.
00:55:08:11 - 00:55:29:12
Randy
All the risks and rollback plans and all those sort of things would go, you know, if if they're using the ITIL framework. and then when they do the mass rollout, you know, they'll either do a mass rollout of, of an update to all the devices if they've got all everything hooked up to, to a cloud management platform, or they'll do a subset and then that and then they'll tier it that way.
00:55:29:12 - 00:55:47:14
Randy
And obviously that's where, you know, Microsoft can help, with, the ring kind of nomenclature when it comes to the Teams admin center, the pro portal, being able to pick the devices that are in specific rings and they're automatically get the updates. I think Microsoft kind of has an edge there when it comes to managing all that.
00:55:47:15 - 00:56:03:04
Randy
Although, you know what, if you need a change process and you need to actually have it predictably updated on that day. So it's kind of six of what happens on the other. But to your point, smaller companies don't bother.
00:56:03:06 - 00:56:19:14
Tom
Yeah, that's the happy time. We've got we've got we've got we've got tens of rooms will have an I.T Pro go round and sort it out and we don't have big change control versus we've got maybe hundreds or thousands of rooms. And actually if something messes up the productivity impact is significant.
00:56:19:16 - 00:56:46:05
Randy
But being able to manage them at scale usually comes up in the conversations when they're actually choosing the rooms. You know, the they'll have picked a platform, whether it's BYoD, Google, you know, Teams obviously, or Zoom or Tencent, if you're in Asia, or any of the other platforms, these, these devices actually, support those. So they'll pick that and they'll kind of hedge their bets on that, and then they'll maybe go out to an RFP to try and find a vendor.
00:56:46:07 - 00:56:53:15
Randy
And it's not just who has a bar, who has the most megapixels and that sort of thing. You've got to consider lots of other things, you know, management at scale.
00:56:53:17 - 00:57:15:11
Tom
Yeah, I'm seeing exactly the same thing, actually. Interestingly, with the customers I talk to is manageability is actually more important. Like there's a minimum threshold for the hardware, right. Has to be to the level. But but you look at the tier, you know, the bigger vendors in our space like this. There's uniques in hardware and in different bits and pieces, but broadly similar like but manageability.
00:57:15:11 - 00:57:33:18
Tom
There's there's wild variants in terms of how they handle it, how they charge for it, how they deal with updates, lifecycle management. and I like to see customers dig into that because again, back to this total cost of ownership thing, that bar might look, you know, 20% cheaper. But when you consider actually does it have the support lifecycle.
00:57:33:18 - 00:57:43:13
Tom
Does it have the the management capabilities. What's the RMA process and returns and spares is another good one like that gets glossed over quite often.
00:57:43:15 - 00:58:09:00
Randy
Yeah. I mean people don't actually realize just how much money it costs you to support because you've got to take that time out of doing other things in your organization to actually do the support on that. So quality and reliability and that sort of thing comes into it. Everybody, I think, is much of a muchness on that. You're not going to build something that is unreliable from the get go, but software things happen, you know, and obviously there's a life cycle kind of churn when it comes to updates and things.
00:58:09:02 - 00:58:22:09
Randy
but another huge, consideration is, you know, building a device that actually is built to last a little bit longer than other devices. So some vendors I'm not going to name any, any vendors, obviously, I work for Logitech.
00:58:22:11 - 00:58:25:05
Tom
And I found myself being dropped on this podcast that no.
00:58:25:05 - 00:59:02:00
Randy
Bombshells being being dropped. But my point is some, and you know, you all will know who you are or who they are, will chip out on the actual hardware to get something out, which is, you know, designed to only last maybe 2 or 3 years or four years, something like that. And I think you when you're spending multiple thousands on a device to for your room, you know, you want to you want to, hedge your bets on a device that actually is over specked, you know, so the processor and the hardware and everything is built to last, you know, the next version of Android, the next version of windows and the next
00:59:02:00 - 00:59:04:04
Randy
one after that, even, you know.
00:59:04:06 - 00:59:05:00
Tom
you know, that's.
00:59:05:02 - 00:59:05:12
Randy
A.
00:59:05:14 - 00:59:06:16
Tom
Really good point. And again.
00:59:06:16 - 00:59:08:17
Randy
Supporting the device after.
00:59:08:19 - 00:59:10:10
Tom
You often gets glossed over after.
00:59:10:10 - 00:59:35:10
Randy
That five year point, you know, and then another really big one. And, you know obviously a tooting our horn here is sustainability. Sustainability is is not just a buzzword anymore. You know, it's not just something that people consider, you know, when you're driving, an electric car instead of a gas guzzler or something. It is, you know, part of the DNA of the culture of the youth that are coming in.
00:59:35:11 - 00:59:41:03
Randy
And I've seen, you know, RFPs come in where sustainability counts for 40%. Yep. Of the overall.
00:59:41:05 - 00:59:59:13
Tom
Score I've seen in, in particularly in the UK and in Europe, less so in the US. I think it's, it's becoming a like, decision maker of the partners. We work with as an enterprise have to also have a sustainability story. And that is part of all, you know, net neutral or carbon zero whatever it is. So yeah, I see the same thing.
00:59:59:15 - 01:00:13:18
Tom
and I do think last year in our space is definitely driving that conversation with all the the clever stuff around reused plastics and different bits and pieces Others are doing clever stuff around, you know, spaces to packaging. Everybody's down on packaging at the moment, which is great as well.
01:00:13:22 - 01:00:43:16
Randy
Yeah, yeah, packaging, taking all the plastics out, you know, kind of going brown, brown cardboard and stuff like that where possible. Even little paper bags for screws and little things like that, all of that kind of thing helps. But, you know, Logi started making all their devices, rally bar taps, you know, everything out of recycled plastic. So, you know, minimum of kind of 40% PCR when it comes to these new devices, low carbon aluminum or aluminum, depending on which side of the pond you're you're listening to this on, aluminum is the right answer.
01:00:43:16 - 01:01:09:00
Randy
But, you know, I'll save that for another day. all those kind of things help. But not only that, being able to tell the world how it's done and hope that people will adopt the similar kind of thing, you know, Logi can use that as a differentiator. for the moment, but we're not using it as a, as the only kind of lever, you know, we actually do care about the planet and actually save the planet, which is which is really cool.
01:01:09:02 - 01:01:28:14
Tom
That's great. Awesome. Well, Randy, thanks for taking the time. I feel like we've, accidentally stumbled on a really good, buyer's guide there for how to think about the, the rooms decision. I've definitely. I ‘ve jotted down. Now, we were talking a couple of things that need to go into our research. That managed bar. No managed bar thing is a really good, good take away on the BYoD space as well.
01:01:28:15 - 01:01:36:22
Tom
for for those that don't know, you should definitely be listening to the UCStatus podcast. Randy, where can people find you in the podcast?
01:01:37:00 - 01:02:10:03
Randy
Yeah. ucstatus.com, just yeah, there's a podcast tab there. There's a number of ways you can consume it if you are, you know, listener of, you know, things like Spotify, Apple, Amazon, you know, any of the, the popular podcast things, we're syndicated on all of them. we've even got an RSS feed that's kind of seems to be the most popular where people just have their own aggregator or download or something, some sort of app on their phone, and they'll download, that, that episode and know, listen to it on the flights and stuff like that.
01:02:10:05 - 01:02:25:04
Randy
That seems to be probably the most popular. But yeah, any anywhere you can get a podcast, you can listen to the UCStatus podcast. you can also catch me on YouTube, YouTube.com/ucstatus. and, you can also catch me in person at Commsverse.
01:02:25:06 - 01:02:31:11
Tom
Awesome. Thanks, Randy Thanks for everything you doing for the community. You really appreciate all the content. It's really good stuff. And, yeah, whether it's your thank.
01:02:31:11 - 01:02:32:16
Randy
You to,
01:02:32:18 - 01:02:36:04
Tom
Yours or mine, next, we'll do it. We'll do another one.
01:02:36:06 - 01:02:40:12
Randy
Yeah. We'll definitely, Yeah, I'll have to catch up on something, very near future. Yeah.
01:02:40:17 - 01:02:42:17
Tom
Great. Thanks, Randy Okay.
01:02:42:19 - 01:02:48:14
Randy
Thanks for having me. All right.