Ryan Herbst: Depending on the organizations. Maturity and pace and where they are as it relates to their AI journey. They may or may not have kind of hit this one yet, but it should be on everybody's radar screen again, with the good news that there are ways to solve it.

Tom Arbuthnot: Welcome back to the Teams Insider Podcast. This week we have Ryan Herbst, who's vice president and chief device strategist at UnifiedCommunications.com. We get into the whole UnifiedCommunications.com story, how they came from a headset vendor to now having one of the widest range of all the OEM devices for Microsoft Teams.

And then we get Ryan's perspective on the Microsoft Teams devices market, how customers make device decisions, Windows versus Android, some of the kind of strategies around device choices. I really enjoyed the conversation with Ryan, hope you do too. And many thanks to Numonix who are this month's sponsor for the podcast.

 Really appreciate their support. They have an awesome call recording, certified solution for Microsoft Teams. So thanks Numonix and thanks again to Ryan. On with the show. Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. Been looking forward to this one. Uh, Ryan and I had quite a few good conversations offline at various events and, uh, Ryan also joins me on the UC Today podcast sometimes, but we're going to get a bit more deep today. So Ryan, for those that don't know, you just want to introduce yourself a little bit about UnifiedCommunications.com. 

Ryan Herbst: Thanks so much, Tom. I'm really excited to be here. I've been looking forward to this.

I lead strategy for UnifiedCommunications.com. I'm one of the principals and founders and UnifiedCommunications.com has been around in some form or fashion since the 80s. Um, and these days, um, heavily focused on, um, on the Teams ecosystem and, uh, modern work in general and helping Microsoft customers make good decisions around meetings, rooms, devices, AI, all of the things that are super top of mind to us these days.

And, uh, yeah, that's, that's our charge. That's our mission. We've been at it for quite a while, really, since the LCS days. Um, and so we've been on, been on the journey, uh, as long as, as most. 

Tom Arbuthnot: That's awesome. Tell me a little bit about the history because, uh, like that's a long, I mean, you were obviously something before UnifiedCommunications.com because 80s predates Unified Communications. How did we end up here? 

Ryan Herbst: Yeah, the company was, um, was formed as a distributor of Plantronics in the 80s. And so before we acquired it, that was what it was doing, and it was back in the traditional, you know, headsets attached as a accessory to a telephony device.

That was, that was the world. And we acquired it. And we're looking to expand and I think we went quickly beyond just that headset space, which is still a big part of what we do and beyond kind of single manufacturer and expanded toward in the direction of where we've gone today, which is into into shared spaces as well as the personal.

Um, the personal story, but I think it's, it's been a, it's been a very fun journey, you know, from kind of single product, sleepy, small organization that we acquired to, you know, a, uh, global organization that, um, that, that has a much broader focus than, than what the organization initially did. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Awesome. And your, your kind of integration to the, the, the Teams ecosystem, the number of vendors you stock, the coverage you have, it's, it's really impressive.

I mean, I think you pretty much have, everything on your books as far as the OEMs go, is that right? 

Ryan Herbst: Yes, really anything that carries a certified, um, status is on the menu from a UnifiedCommunications.com perspective and, um, and we do that on a global stage. So I think it started in the US and these days, um, that's expanded to Canada, UK.

Um, EU and, uh, and recently Australia and New Zealand. That's awesome. And 

Tom Arbuthnot: is it a mix of customers can work with you directly? Presumably you work with partners as well. What's the, what's the kind of model there? 

Ryan Herbst: Yeah, it's, there's a mix. I would say the majority of what we do is, is touching an end customer.

And in some cases we're attached to partners where Um, hardware or some of our subject matter expertise around particular pieces of the Microsoft solution set are not core to them. Um, often the global fulfillment kind of piece, the engine that we've built and we've got some specialized software tools as well as some help me choose and configurator type tools that are broadly used by enterprise customers as they seek to, um, to both invest on the device side, but also provide, um, maintain standards and provide some choice.

And so we've done quite a bit of work in that area. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Awesome. So you've really seen the kind of, obviously, link Skype business and now Teams grow, the ecosystem grow. And it's interesting because you're coming at it not from a, a lot of the rooms providers are coming at it from an AV heritage, whereas you're coming from a kind of shipping headsets heritage, which is more in my head is more of a like box, like let's do like lots of lots of big numbers. Let's not do super crazy complex bespoke stuff. Is that a fair summarization of kind of where you come from? I think it's 

Ryan Herbst: fair and kind of prior to, um, to this organization, my background was more on the IT side. And so I think it's super fair to say, one, that, um, that, that, uh, we're big fans of hardware and that hardware is strategic and important to us and that we, we love and care deeply about hardware.

I think the other thing that's fair to say is that, you know, we come more from an IT perspective and, and kind of kicked and screamed into the, into the AV space. So I think, uh, you know, I, I came from a world where you know, you could add nines to things by throwing dollars at them. That wasn't the world that we found in the AV space when we arrived on the scene.

It's still to some degree, not that world. And so it took a lot of adjustment, but I do think it, it shaped significantly our philosophy and approach as it relates to AV design. And more of an IT lens kind of view of how AV could scale and be structured versus being kind of a niche play that it has been historically, and not necessarily something that you know, made a lot of customers really happy in the past.

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah, and that seems to align, maybe coincidentally, maybe not, to where Microsoft, you know, when you hear Microsoft vocalize Rooms in particular and devices, they're looking for, you know, simple scale, like, like, not three days of crazy config, like dropship. You know, we've got now, obviously Android is very fast, we've got Autopilot coming along on the Teams Room side.

Yeah. Is that what you're seeing with customers? Because traditionally they would have lots of AV complexity and wrap in enterprise. 

Ryan Herbst: Yeah, I think the story certainly is Microsoft's perspective around some simplicity, but it resonates based on just the journey that customers have been through. I think they went through this traditional AV world where it was bespoke and expensive and custom and have a lot of moving parts, a lot of little powered boxes that occasionally had to be rebooted, extenders, switchers, scalers, and, uh, that experience for, you know, for most customers didn't work that well.

I think they, you know, they had high cost. And high complexity, it didn't deliver, you know, reliability or consistency and it didn't allow them really to take the show on the road. It kind of had different partner in different cities. And yeah, I think that, that experience just, just, um, you know, it was very, very painful.

And so I think refreshing to customers is the approach of, uh, this can be so much more simple, this can be standardized. Certainly the technology had to support that and it's evolved. That, that kind of world where you could pull something out of a box, um, was available for quite some time for personal devices.

Um, in, initially, you began to see some of it in the smallest of spaces, but that line has changed significantly, you know, over the years where, you know, these days, you know, Outside of specialty spaces, you know, boardrooms and training rooms and multipurpose rooms, you can pull things out of the box, even for, for most of the traditional conference room portfolio.

And that's game changer, I think, for a lot of organizations, not, uh, all of whom have discovered this. I think there's plenty of that have, you know, pretty traditional playbook and, uh, and they may have built out a lot of, you know, infrastructure and have a lot of people supporting, um, more traditional view on, on AV, but I think Um, you know, they're, they're quickly seeing the light that this can be much faster and, and they really have to because the, I think the, the, the reliance on collaboration technology and the ability to leverage these tools in this modern, fast paced AI world, um, is, is, is just a prerequisite.

And so I think to be competitive, um, this is one of those of aha moments that a lot of organizations are having that we've got to change our approach. 

Tom Arbuthnot: That makes sense. What do you see? I get, fortunately, to talk to quite a lot of enterprises about their strategy and that there's lots of, you know, um, standardization and like, here's our small, medium, large.

But on the other hand, there's lots of OEMs, there's competitiveness, there's innovation. How do you find customers balance those two things? The idea of having standards and the fact there's new options, you know, every, every six months, if not every three months. 

Ryan Herbst: Yeah, it's a great question. Standards are key.

I think it's also the case that in this fast paced, lower cost world that where the clip of innovation is taking place just very, very fast. We have to take some snapshots. We have to recognize that Uh, we have to look at standards much more frequently than in the past. And so I think the days of blocking and loading for five year refreshes are long gone.

And, um, so I think these days it is, it is about creating a standardized approach, taking a snapshot, reviewing that, Maybe a couple of times a year. And, um, you know, that one of the beauties of having a standardized, you know, interface and management and approach the way Microsoft has brought this to bear with Teams Rooms is you can have slight variances in versions and some of the hardware and you could have different cameras and audio devices in a particular space, but we have the same consistent user experience.

And, uh, and so we think that's important. I think also important is Um, it's, it's certainly fine to kind of think of things in, you know, t shirt sizes in terms of small, medium and large. Uh, one of the things we're often encouraging customers to think about as well is just the experience because I think in some instances the same size and capacity space, you know, could have very different kind of intent in terms of how a particular business group wants to, to use it.

And so sometimes within that menu, um, you could have. Same kind of medium space attached to some different personas or profiles where one may be more focused on ideation and brainstorming and creating content in the room where others might be more around consumption of content and certainly all of that is beginning to change as we think about kind of AI, where it's already kind of making its way very, very quickly into the meeting space.

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah, that's a really good point. Actually, I guess the small meeting room next to the CEO's office that they use for, you know, collaboration and the small meeting room in the IT building, like, like you might go for different kit and different use cases there potentially. For sure. Awesome. What about, uh, you know, you're fortunate to work with all the different OEMs and have lots of options for your customers, how do you see customers kind of trying to standardise, or maybe not, on certain OEMs, because that's certainly a conversation I hear a lot is, you know, certain OEMs have bigger portfolios, certain OEMs have a great particular device that people want to bring in, but then there's an opportunity cost there of, or is there, with dealing with lots of different vendors as a customer? 

Ryan Herbst: Yeah, it's, you know, it seems like it is much more kind of organizational culture.

I think some of them really feel strongly about trying to minimize the number of manufacturers in their environment and where they can pull it all off with a single manufacturer. That's their preference. I think there's others that are really looking at innovation. And if there's a particular manufacturer that can augment a use case and provide some additional value, they're open to that.

I think some of this as the as the device management side again becomes more standardized. This is less challenging than it has been in the past. I think it was really painful if you had to have very specific tools, tooling and tool sets and support and, and user experience, uh, implications by, by crossing those manufacturer lines.

But largely, it's either gone or, or, or, or diminishing, I think, within the Microsoft world. I think the idea of mixing and matching, which was net new for sure. This idea that you could take a particular compute and touch panel and use a different manufacturer's camera and audio. Back in the Skype days, this was very, very novel and new.

And I think these days it's fairly mainstream and supported. Uh, but yeah, definitely, definitely customer choice. And I think this idea of trying to wade through. Um, this huge ecosystem of options, you know, is challenging for, and I think that the guidance from folks like you, folks like us around how you kind of lean in and look at, um, what a particular device manufacturer is doing particularly well.

I think all of them have some, some, some elements. And so often, you know, we're, you know, we're part of a process helping customers identify what those standards should look like and we go through a deep dive on the OEM side and we're looking at, you know, here's what this one does well. This one does well.

This one has a particular way of approaching a divisible space that has less integration requirements than another. That kind of thing. And, um, and then here's how they approach device management. Here's their kind of global story. Here's their support story. And let's try to at least come up with a short list.

Then, and then through some, you have some actual, um, testing and proof of concept. Usually we can arrive at, at one, two, or three, maybe in, in, inside a large organization. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah, this is the blessing and the curse of ecosystem, isn't it? We get lots of innovation, we get price competition, we get, you know, people really pushing.

But if you're coming in cold to this space, particularly maybe you traditionally had an AV team that ran just Poly gear or just Cisco gear. Suddenly it's like, woah there's 17 bars that are all slightly similar and all slightly different. Like, um, how, how do you take custom, like, is that the, the process you kind of outlined there is what your use cases and then thinking through what kit might fit?

Ryan Herbst: Yeah, we, we have a solutions and consulting team and we feel really strongly that, you know, the first approach is to take a step back and look, you know, from a, uh, from from a high level at, you know, organizational needs and and you know where they're going and generally as part of that process we have a workshop type engagement where we're, we're focused on, um, strategy of where, where they're going, where Microsoft is going, um, what they're doing today, what they're trying to solve.

And there's an OEM kind of deep dive component to that process where, um, we're, we're trying to identify, um, either one or a short list of, Uh, OEMs that, that seem like they really align well with what they're trying to do. And that, you know, that includes in the Teams world, you know, discussions on Windows versus Android and, you know, all of the, there's a lot of nuance there, the kind of all in one, the, the, the bar approach versus the decentralized it type products, um, the all in one touch products these days, there's, there's quite a bit of, uh, of, of opportunity. And, and so I agree with you, I think ecosystem, um, can be a little bit daunting, uh, but it's really an opportunity if you can fine tune and leverage it. And, um, and, um, but it does, it does take some, some guidance and expertise.

And if it's not something you do every day, you got to reach out to some, some professionals for help. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah, I would say it would be, it's really challenging. There are some great customers that have in house teams that have labs that test stuff out and I feel like they're really privileged to be sent kit and test kit and play with it and they can make some quite informed decisions as you get lower down, you know, you get from the tens of thousands to thousands seat count.

It's really tough because how could you possibly your, your full time job is not making it decisions like you have, you have multiple things to do. So I think it gets harder and harder. And as we said, the, the ecosystem is, is fast moving and very varied, both what Microsoft is doing and then what the OEMs are doing as well.

Ryan Herbst: Couldn't agree more hard enough for those of us who it is our day job. Fortunately, there's resources available, I think, for those, those customers and, uh, and add resource and wide options of ecosystem, and you can arrive at a pretty exciting solution. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Awesome. And what have you seen? Like, again, you're fortunate to see lots of customers, different, all the different OEMs, all the different form factors.

Have you seen anything in particular being more popular or less popular? Any changes in trend? 

Ryan Herbst: It's interesting. I think, you know, certainly on the Windows versus Android kind of question in the Teams room world. Um, I think we've, you know, we've, we've, we've seen, uh, certain customers that are, you know, that have really gravitated toward the appliance approach, I think, uh, and some of those same customers have, uh, have, have wished that some of the speed and innovation that they've seen on the, on the Windows side, um, kind of existed on, on the Android side.

And I think, um, quite a few of them have, you know, Have recently taken more of a hybrid approach where they may be placing Android devices based on their simplicity and price point in more simple spaces and smaller spaces and leveraging Windows devices for, um, for spaces where one day they really want to make sure that they're participating in the innovation kind of process as quickly as possible.

Um, and two, they want the confidence of Windows plug and play, um, and to know that they can iterate and evolve in that space over time, which, uh, which is an easier story to consume on the on the Windows side. Um, I will say that, that, um, you know, MDEP uh, Microsoft's Device Ecosystem Platform or Mandroid as, as I like to call it, uh, um, you know, could have some, some interesting changes.

I think one of the, you know, I think organizations have struggled a little bit to understand and to manage around Android lifecycle. I think to some degree in a way that's been more complex than, uh, and harder, um, to some degree than it has been for Windows. And I think there's some hope that, um, that, that MDEP, if executed properly, um, could help extend some of those life cycles and then could bring some consistency to some of the areas and, uh, and also some, some additional security and credibility to the story that hasn't necessarily existed on the Android side based on how, uh, It's architected today.

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah, it's a really good point. You make an Android is is really tough to under again coming in from not not spending full time in this space. The idea that there's a certified life cycle based on the Android OS, but the OEM can choose to patch to a new major version and recertify, but will they or won't they, can they or can't they based on chipset?

And I feel like, you know, if you're again, you're the enterprise trying to make your choice, having to understand the implications of what chipset the vendors use, where that device is in life cycle. Um, I've seen some really, um, challenging scenarios where customers have bought kit right towards the end of lifecycle.

They're like, Oh, we've got a great deal. I'm like, yeah, but did you get a great deal? And I think about like PCO and when, when, how long is this going to be supported? So it's interesting that Android is doing so well. Despite some of that challenge, it shows that there's definitely appetite for that, whether it's price point or simplicity or a mix of the two.

Ryan Herbst: Yeah, you're right. And I think that, that, you know, one of the reasons is that maybe only the most sophisticated of customers have kind of uncovered the soft underbelly. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah. Yeah. I feel like more and more, we've got changes now happening for the first time where the older IP phones are going to, as we record.

Uh, September 2024, there's a change happening where the, the older IP phones will actually stop working. Now they're, they're end of certification, end of support have been for a while, but there's a bunch of customers that assume IP phones will just tick along indefinitely because what do they do? They make calls and receive calls, but there's an infrastructure change that is going to stop them receiving calls, which is kind of the first time at a decent scale.

We've had a scenario where something's been actively, you know, broken, even though it's holding out certification. 

Ryan Herbst: Agreed. Yeah. And we're, we're involved in a couple of those as well, uh, of some devices that help create certifications that, that, that no longer do and, um, uh, and don't have a path forward either.

Including through SIP gateway. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah. And this is where the, again, the advice is so key and picking OEMs again, I like to spend time with customers like that. I feel like maybe this is generalization, but I feel like often they're quite quick to go straight to specs and resolution and lenses and cameras and spend less time on like, you know, the financial health of the OEM, can they ship globally, what's the support process, what's the timelines, what's their management, you know, what's their, you know, have they been in the Microsoft ecosystem for 10 years or 5 minutes?

Well, you know, there's lots of non device factors I feel are super important when you're making your device decisions. 

Ryan Herbst: I could not agree more. And I think the life cycle side, I think it's something that has, as customers become more aware and get a little more sophisticated, they're starting to demand or the larger they are, the more that they're going to ask for and require some, some commitment on, which is not easy to deliver from an OEM perspective for all the reasons that you shared, they don't necessarily even control all of it.

They are reliant on the Chipset manufacturers, um, to even if they could, and then there's certainly cost involved in those OEMs have to decide whether they want to put the cost into, uh, upgrading a legacy product or selling a new product. And it's, uh, yeah, it puts them in. It's an interesting position to be in.

Tom Arbuthnot: Awesome. Um, another thing I wanted to kind of quiz you on was AI, right? Like Microsoft, we're coming into the new FY, AI is definitely top of mind for Microsoft. What are you seeing in a practical, useful sense in terms of Rooms? And there's various features. Are you seeing any of those features starting to hit yet?

Is it more of a conversation? Where is, what's your perspective on that? 

Ryan Herbst: Yeah, I would say the big one that's hitting now, I mean, I, I think there's, there's a, there's things that are, that are crossing our desk daily and then there's, um, a groundswell of, of interest in leveraging these devices for, for, for more, and thinking of the room in a different way.

But I would say. At first rubber hits the road, um, area that is, is a now, you know, is, is around, um, attribution and, and transcription from, from the room, I think as organizations, um, go through the, um, their piloting and adoption of, of, uh, of, uh, Um, technologies like Copilot that can provide and, and Teams Premium that can provide a, a recap and summary, um, quickly they're discovering that, um, this is awesome except when we have a group of folks in the conference room and the whole transcript and, and recap.

Yeah, 

Tom Arbuthnot: arguably some of the more useful scenarios where we've got 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 people in every, in a meeting now. 

Ryan Herbst: Um, so I, I think, um, that, that is quickly coming back to the AV team and, uh, as. Hey, we've got a challenge in this kind of exciting journey toward AI. You know, we're one of the most, um, one of the lowest hanging pieces of fruit, which is, uh, recaps and transcription, um, and summaries, um, are not working in our, in our conference spaces.

And so I think the good news is um, there's a way to solve that today and there has been for quite some time and that the stories, it just gets better. There were, there were some purpose built devices, these intelligent speaker devices that were allowing us to do this type of attribution and shared spaces to um, particular users, um, in the past and now that, that world is, is moving to the cloud and, uh, um, is, is available at least on their Teams Room on Windows world, you know, today, um, without requiring a specific hardware device and is coming. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah, that's a huge unlock for customers on NTR and Windows, they've suddenly just opened up per user identifying transcription across those devices and links coming to Android late this year, early next year as well. 

Ryan Herbst: Exactly. And so, um, this is huge. I think all of a sudden, um, um, you know, we're, we're leveraging these same tools and in our shared spaces. And once you see the transcript, say Tom said, and Ryan said, um, it's really, it's really exciting.

And you realize that we don't have this gaping hole that we thought we might have had. Um, but I think this is, is depending on the, in organizations. maturity and, uh, and, and, uh, pace and, and where they are as it relates to their AI journey, they may or may not have kind of hit this one yet, but it should be on everybody's radar screen, again, with the good news that there are ways to solve it.

Let's say moving beyond this. I think the idea of Um, beyond the AI taking place inside, um, you know, camera intelligence and that side, I think we've, we've seen that in the past and that continues to evolve and is a very important part of creating engaging experiences these days. If we don't wanna hit buttons and manually move things, we'd like things to happen in an automated fashion and for the system to be intelligent enough to make decisions around.

Cameras and angles and, and multi camera and, um, that, that world, which is, is, has been here to some degree, but is, is really starting to hit. Kind of mainstream today. And I would say that the next wave of this is walking into a room and really thinking about this device as an assistant and its access to corporate information and access to, um, to, to the type of information that can sit inside, um, you know, something like, like Copilot, um, and to be able to use it as, um, um, to, um, to transcribe a meeting, to record, to provide information, um, Um, and then certainly this, this, this new kind of world of thinking about, you know, Copilot less as a personal tool and more as a team assistant, um, has huge implications as we come into a shared space like a meeting room.

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah, some really good points. I think the multi cameras really interesting to me as well, because I feel like we've had the technical capabilities to in previous technical iterations, but you know, it was it was restricted to typically very high end and you even had, you know, those rooms where somebody would literally be controlling a switcher and doing it.

And the fact that AI direction can kind of commoditize that again, and we can have center of room cameras or multi camera and have the system intelligently pick the right frame or the right perspective. That's really exciting, I think. 

Ryan Herbst: Yeah, I think you're right. And I think we had a, we had a wave of customer requirement changes post pandemic as executives came back and kind of were no longer tolerating the boardroom experience.

It was super zoomed out and referenced security type view. 

Tom Arbuthnot: It's funny how that happens when the executives go home and they're like, Oh, this, this is rubbish. I 

Ryan Herbst: totally agree. Yeah. I think there's, there's another wave brewing now as, um, as that light bulb goes off on just how much more interesting and engaging it can be to, you know to see very little of this and you have to see a lot more of this.

Um, this is, um, this wasn't really possible without significant expense and, um, you know, or manual interaction in the past. And I think the story, um, is really here today, um, but it's going to continue to, to develop, you know, this and next year and it's among the areas that we're, we're most excited about because it really makes the experience so, so different from, from an engagement perspective.

Tom Arbuthnot: Awesome. Well, Ryan, thanks for taking the time to jump on the pod. I appreciate you, uh, sharing, uh, all your insight and perspective. Um, I guess if people want to find out more, UnifiedCommunications.com, probably the first place 

Ryan Herbst: to 

stop.

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. They can, they can, they can find us. They can reach out if they, um.

Also find me on, on LinkedIn or, or, or Twitter. And yeah, we'd love to, um, to, to, to answer any, any questions if this sparked an interest somewhere. Um, it's been, uh, amazing and really enjoyed spending some time on, on the podcast, Tom. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Awesome. Thanks Ryan.