Craig Durr: There's a lot of vendors out there, man, right? And now, as a buyer, I need to start thinking about not just low cost. Maybe it's a new vendor who's on the peripherals of the Infocomm space. That's kinda the tell that they're new in market, and they might be a ODM, but now they're starting to go direct to the enterprise or something like that. I've gotta make sure they're not just giving me inexpensive devices. I gotta make sure they have the software support, the maintenance, and things like that to along the way to help me both to be AI ready for the positive features I wanna have, but also as a defense posture to make sure I'm not gonna be exposed to any new vulnerabilities coming up in this AI world.

Tom Arbuthnot: Welcome back to the show. This week, Analyst Craig Durr takes us through his numbers for the five-year projection for the video rooms market. We talk about how that's going to impact. He projects some growth, but has some cautions as well. We talk about Windows MTR versus Android MTR. We talk about new AI features and how AI is going to help in the room, but also might influence growth in the sense of budgets may go to other projects than rooms. We talk about BYOD's influence, all the different options customers have, and what he predicts for the next year and then the next five years. Many thanks to Craig for taking us through all the numbers and insights, and also many thanks to Nuwave, who are the sponsor of this podcast. Really appreciate all their support of the show. On with the show. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Really excited to have Craig on again. This is long overdue. We've had some great conversations at the various shows. But I particularly wanted to pull Craig on to discuss his new report 'cause he's projected up to 2030 for the room space video market. So what does that mean? What's his prediction? And how has he come to that prediction? Craig, welcome back. Nice to see you again, mate.

Craig Durr: Great to see you. It has been a long time since we've done a formal podcast, but we're fortunate

Tom Arbuthnot: I know. I know to see each other well. Like it's really overdue. I can't remember what we've talked about in private and what we've talked about on the pod, but let's see what comes out.

Craig Durr: I think the last time we saw each other in person was at M365 in Orlando.

Tom Arbuthnot: Oh, yeah, M365 Conf. Yes, it was. It was. Yeah. And how many shows have you done since then? Oh. 'Cause you've done a few. InfoComm last, I know.

Craig Durr: InfoComm. There was Google Cloud Next. There was, Let's see. What else did I do? I did a couple. I've been, I, well, I, it's not a badge of honor, but I've been to Las Vegas three times already this year, - Orlando twice, and I, it's only halfway through the year, so I'm kind of nervous. That's,

Tom Arbuthnot: That's good commitment to the- to the research Awesome. Well, we're gonna talk about Infocomm in a bit 'cause I wanna get your perspective on that, 'cause as we record, it's just off the back of that. Yeah. But, first off, like, really interesting report. So, what is this report? And I guess headline, what are you thinking as far as the numbers? And then we'll go into the how you came to that.

Craig Durr: Sounds good. So if your audience, if I haven't had a pleasure of meeting them yet, I My name is Craig. I do work as what's called an Industry Analyst. The best way I think about this is when I talk to companies or people, I tell them I help them make better decisions or reach more people. I kind of work as a bridge between what the technology vendors want to articulate as their value proposition and build out their strategies to those IT decision-makers, those IT professionals who are deploying and buying it as well, too. One of the things that we do as a company is we do do some very specific niche research, and one of the core areas that I do is video conferencing devices. It is a quarterly update of what was sold, revenue, and units, and that feeds into a five-year forecast for those devices. It also feeds into a total addressable market. How many conference rooms are out in the world? How many would be converted over the next year, five years, three years, what have you? Now, this data tends to be mostly of interest to those business strategists within the, industry side, the vendor side of this. So you can think about those OEMs, the classic OEMs, right, Neat, HP, Cisco, and what have you. But the data in itself is insightful because it's a reflection of the conversations I've had from IT professionals and their buying behaviors. And it also helps inform them what they might be thinking their peers are doing as well, too. So At a high level, that's what this report is. Now, what I just released is my five-year forecast. So every year, after the close of the previous year, I'll do a quick retrospective of the 2025 year, and then I'll use that to build out a five-year forecast. It uses a compound annual growth rate or a CAGR, a term a lot of people use a lot, which kind of benchmarks the market. So, this was the output, and I've really been digging in on my methodology, over the last several years. I've been doing this report for eight years now, and each year I incrementally add more and more nuance to it to make it more realistic. I should share one thing about this. Before being an analyst, some of you may have known me from when I worked on the OEM side. I led the, group video product team for what was Polycom and then became Poly in the transition to HP. I joked, Tom, during that time, I had, three company names, six CEOs, and I can't tell you how many different changes of logos on the, on the golf shirt. But

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah, I remember that time well. It was an interesting time.

Craig Durr: But this is data that as a product planner, as a business strategist, I was dying for. And so, this is one of those key things.

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah, and you've got a relationship with lots of the OEMs that y- you know, you, NDA share numbers and thoughts and stuff, so you've got a good handle on what's going on across the board.

Craig Durr: I'm really fortunate in that, and I think what I wound up doing is being a trusted neutral ground for all of these vendors to gather insights about where the industry's going. So this data isn't guesstimation. I'm actually fortunate that I get shipment data, units, and revenue from over 14 different OEMs within the space. If I don't have direct information from them, I'm able to probably articulate some from the briefings that I have with them, which they do with analysts, or with even their publicly, released information, quarterly earning report and stuff. So my job is to dive into those numbers so that I can give other people these insights. But I'm fortunate that they trust me. They share with me the challenges they're seeing, the headwinds, the tailwinds that are helping them as well too. And it allows me to have a nice holistic picture that's data-driven, that is helpful, I think, for the entire industry. I think of it as a service I do there.

Tom Arbuthnot: And how's it like, five years feels like an eternity to forecast in this day and age with everything moving so fast. If you go back five years ago- Yeah and think of the changes we've had, I mean, particularly with AI and DRAM and everything else. So, you said you kind of keep adjusting that forecast as you get yearly data. Is that right?

Craig Durr: I do. You're right about that. Now, I'm gonna caveat one thing real quick, 'cause this report is something that I offer as all the full details as a subscription to, certain OEMs. But I did publish some, articles on LinkedIn, and that's what drove this conversation for you and I to get started, which is what was the methodology behind it, what were some of the high level numbers, which we'll talk about. But to go back to your question, you're right. Five years is an eternity. And something like a pandemic, a shortage in supplies, you don't know about. So my- general approach is I think you have high level of visibility into a 24-month window, maybe 30-month window. Know what the known knowns, if you remember that term from a previous US politician as well. It's the known unknowns that we don't. And so at that point in time, going from about the two-year to five-year, it's a bit of a momentum idea. Where's the current momentum taking us right now? So we try and plan for some of those unforeseen things like a pandemic, which all of a sudden brings everyone home, drives a lot of sales of certain types of devices because people are enabling, you know, BYOD experiences or group experiences. So that's the general idea. It is a lifetime, and that's why I adjust it every year. That's why I have to sit back and take place. And there are some things

Tom Arbuthnot: And you came in really close to the actual- I last year. I think

Craig Durr: You were within- I did a few- I was pretty fortunate- few

Tom Arbuthnot: Points out

Craig Durr: In that. I appreciate you mentioning that. So last year for a, for a year-over-year, growth thing, myself and the team estimated that we were gonna sell about $3.65 billion in device sales. This is this is revenue into the OEMs. I should caveat that. This is what is channel in, is a term that's used frequently. This is what the OEMs sell into the channel. This is not the revenue of the channel selling out to the end users or the IT pros. But yeah, we came in really well. I mean, we were basically spot on in terms of the accuracy, which was the revenue came in at about $3.66 billion. And for the unit count, for the most part, we were also pretty good. We came in at about 97% of our forecast. I think the nuance that took place there was there was higher, ASPs on certain devices sold. In particular, the Android-based devices, which I categorize as appliance-based devices, had a very strong year and they have a little bit higher average selling price than some of the other devices, and so that's kind of where that unit count came off But, yeah

Tom Arbuthnot: And this is covering anything you would call a room device. Yeah. So it's BYOD to kind of full room system, Zoom Room, MTR Room- It is. We

Craig Durr: Break it- Like standard space room we break it into four categories, and I should sell those real quick so we how this aligns. The first category I call appliance-based solutions. Now, in your ecosystem, the Microsoft Teams, this is the classic Android device, MTR WA, right? this is a purpose-built device where it is appliance-based, it is specific for video conferencing. Now, I use that term loosely 'cause if I go into certain markets like China, there are still companies like Huawei that are doing devices that may or may not be Android. And frankly, Cisco devices run an Android virtual, instantiation on top of, a different type of kernel. So technically

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah, they got Linux with NVIDIA, haven't they?

Craig Durr: Yeah, exactly. They- So they're,

Tom Arbuthnot: They're appliance but they're you could argue- Right they're just on Android or Linux.

Craig Durr: But the largest majority of the, units within appliance-based solutions tend to be Android. Now, the second one I call PC-based solutions, and just like that sounds or to the world here, it's MTR, W. These are- Yep PC-based solutions where the compute is PC-based. A lot of times it winds up being bundled components, but now as you and I, you and I know, we've actually had some bars, single bars that come out that were Windows-based, here in the last, 12 months. Yeah.

Tom Arbuthnot: We're getting, we're getting modular Android and all-in-one Windows. Exactly. Windows board, Windows bars. So the cross-pollination there is interesting.

Craig Durr: That's right. So those PC-based units are also would count as well. Now, I also look at what I call personal appliance-based solutions. Think about Neat just came out with the Neat Board 32, which you just did a thing with Graham, which was great. This is an appliance-based solution designed for personal experience, but a lot of people use these in rooms. Huddle rooms- Yeah there's Totem rooms and stuff. So I contribute those as part of the room, install base. And then the last one is, I call them Room BYOD, and this is the equipment's in the room but the compute's not there. I walk in, I plug in my laptop, and I'm able to take over control of the camera that's permanent to the room, the microphones that's permanent to the room, and the speakers. And it's ki- that's the unique thing. These are when the devices are permanent to the room. So those are the four categories that we have, and that is the data that I collect that I use to project which was, in 2025 $3.66 billion of devices were sold

Tom Arbuthnot: And that's, that four device categories is really interesting because obviously that has changed a lot over time. Obviously specifics to your subscribers, but, you know, the Android appliance device, it feels like has been on a big rise over the last few years. But lately it feels like BYOD, suddenly there's these new gen of BYOD devices that have computing, so they're not I almost feel like we need two types of BYOD now, like a dumb BYOD and a compute BYOD.

Craig Durr: It is. It's a, it's an interesting pattern which is taking place in the buyer's market about this. I agree with you. There is something that I call the Triple Replacement Wave. This, because an analyst needs to have a term like this. And this is what we're kind of in the heart of right now. So in starting in about 2025, there was three key factors that came in that were really driving potential replacements within rooms. First one, Windows 10 to Windows 11 migration, so end of life of Windows 10. Now, you didn't think it would impact much, but like people like Crestron had some dedicated devices out there. Yealink had some dedicated devices as well too. And if people wanted to stay within support, they had to migrate off of- Yeah, plenty of those early gen MTRs or

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah,

Craig Durr: Exactly Skype

Tom Arbuthnot: Rooms had to be flipped over to new Teams rooms, so there was a lot of change there.

Craig Durr: The second factor was the Android migration, so from 10 to 12. Now, Microsoft has grandfathered that in and changed it at the last moment. You know better than I do. But, so right now there are still some 12 devices that are being allowed to be certified, with an extension. But that's still a driver of getting people to get to more current devices that can support that, right?

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah, and that's a broad direction of travel as obviously people have been more aware of security issues, so they're keen to not have really old devices or unsupported devices hanging around anymore.

Craig Durr: Right. And then the last one is what you were talking about, was BYOD. So there was a ton of room, low-cost room devices that were purchased and put in place during the pandemic, at the end of the pandemic. If you look at a spike of what took place, it was one of the largest categories that took place. And so in terms of a PC-like ecosystem, there was a lot of PC devices and a lot of BYOD devices that were put in place. But to your point, they didn't have some of the management or the video intelligence in place. Here's a classic example. Logitech MeetUp market-leading, huge number of devices that are out there in space, and they sold a lot during that post-pandemic or that pandemic timeframe. But those aren't managed devices, and they don't have some of the really, high feature-rich, AI video and audio features that the Meetup 2 now have, for example. So those things have been in place for about five years, and I think there's an element that they may be replaced. But here's a key challenge to this, and this is what's important. I you're recognizing and you're speculating it, but neither one of these is a reason for an IT pro to holistically do an entire estate refresh. No one's gonna go out there and say, "I need managed BYOD devices. I'm gonna refresh all 100, 200, 300 rooms." Or, "I need, Windows 10 devices to 11, I'm gonna refresh, fresh them all." What those three categories do is it helps prioritize how those IT professionals are spending their money. So let's just make a case 'cause it's gonna come in here later on about this forecast. If an IT On average, this is really rough, and I know it varies from organization to organization, but most people seem to tend to target about a 20% refresh of their video estate each year. So especially large enterprises, you know, they kinda target 15 to 20%. I'm just gonna say 20% to keep it really simple right now. So every five years, they will refresh some really old devices. They've already been amateurized. Some organizations sweat them until they fall apart, but that's about every five years Those three things are gonna help set priority of what devices are refreshed, what rooms are refreshed, not necessarily that I'm gonna do more than 20% of my budget. I'm a, I'm a, I'm a CIO. I've only got so much budget each year. I'm planning on my collaboration devices budget, and that's what I've submitted for and I've gotten. It's equivalent of 20%. That's my business case I make to my CFO. But then they're gonna prioritize. I've got Windows 10 devices, high priority. I've got some old Android devices. I wanna make sure I have a good management story. I'll do those. I've got some really old, cruddy, BYOD devices, and I say cruddy. They may not have the best user experience, so I don't have insights into them. I'll do those. So that's what, that's what's taking place there in that regards, and that's a typical process.

Tom Arbuthnot: And what, and what's your feeling on, like, what's winning that conversation? 'Cause AI has changed this conversation again, which is the whole intelligence in the room, speaker recognition- Yeah like some of the stuff we're seeing from, Teams and others where actually having the compute live in the room, using the camera, being, transcribing in-person meetings means that actually, like, NTR Zoom Room compute-based room with AI in the room is interesting. On the other hand, you've got lots of commercial pressures saying, "Well, actually, do I go just basic Android bar? Do I go BYOD?" Like, where are people's minds at?

Craig Durr: And it's really interesting. So we'll get to Infocomm. I had a panel on this about how to leverage an AI story in these use cases. And all the device manufacturers, all the UC platforms are leaning into capturing more data within the room to inform the AI work streams, right? Started basically as transcripts, but now it's going into things about, you know, beyond people count. And the opportunity to do things like even sentiment analysis of who's in the room, who's listening and paying attention, things like that is on the horizon. It's impactful, but I might be a I'm a little bit cautious. I don't think it's gonna cause a wholesale refresh. It's a great story, but I think you can probably appreciate this in some of the people who are in the middle, the channel partners that might be listening. The feature velocity and the adoption velocity of the of the features are two different things, right? What's coming out from Microsoft Teams in terms of their AI experience Facilitator in the room, note takers, and things like that in the room are awesome. The deployment of these in spaces are, it's lagged. It's behind, it's behind the curve of the feature adoption. And that's just I think a reality of refresh cycles and when- Yeah, I

Tom Arbuthnot: Think it always will be to an extent, won't it? It's interesting, when you've bet on a platform how much capability you get added to that platform over time. So like actually the Windows MTRs are a good example. If you place your bet on quality hardware on a Windows MTR, you can get a lot of life cycle out of it, and you just keep inheriting these features. But then there'll be a break point where, oh, multi-camera, now we need more horsepower, we need more- Right HDMI, we need like It's not gonna go that far. And it feels like we're at another break point with the AI where the stuff coming is gonna need MPU, lots of RAM, lots of power. So some you inherit over time, and sometimes there's a hardware break point where it's like to get the very new stuff, it's gonna be on your next hardware recycle.

Craig Durr: I agree. And this is the struggle of our IT professional brethren. This is where they're like, "I wanna do it all, but I've only got so much budget. I've, I want to get us to that story, and you're pushing me A CEO and CFO, what's our AI story there? But I need money to do that. I need to, you know- refresh rooms. You need to have licenses if you're gonna dive into Copilot and things like this, or Cowork now. So it is a trajectory. It is a, it is a destination that people are on as a journey. It's not an immediate landing of I am now fully enabled. Some companies are able to do it, don't get me wrong, and they have great stories that people put on stage, but a lot of people are on a journey to get there.

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah. And like, say even the stories- I think you agree with me they'll be on a journey to be like, "Well, we've done it in the New York office, and now we're working around the world." I "Or we've done it for the exec offices, and now we're working our way around." So yeah, I think, I think, I very rarely work with a customer that's just blanket done every room all at once. You know, it's the, some of the ones we've had on the podcast have done amazing things of hundreds at a time in weeks kind of thing, but like even then, they've been estates of thousands of MTRs. Right.

Craig Durr: It's gonna take a time. But, and this is, this is a great segue. So I think we're laying a great foundation of how to look at the market, what's being refreshed, how those devices are. But in this report, I actually took a little bit more cautious point of view, which I think is what caught your eye. You're like, "Hold on, Craig. What are you saying here? What's going on?" Let me explain a little bit about this report and how I look at it. A lot of people tend to lean into some of these forecasts as a black box. You don't know what goes in, and it comes out. Some of my peers who I highly respect kinda operate where it's a little bit of Someone coming down the mountain with stone tablets saying, "Here's your forecast for the year, and this is what it's gonna look like going forward." I, and I wanna be able to have more transparency to this. And this is where I've been publishing these articles on LinkedIn showing how I'm thinking about that. I created something that I call the Key Factor Matrix, and these are macro factors, nine of them, that I look across regionally, CALA, APAC, EMEA, North America, and then worldwide as a separate entity. And I help measure what I think how these are impacting everything we talked about, buying budgets, future velocity, market saturation, things like this. All these things that help impact probably how that IT professional is gonna make the decisions of how much I can refresh, how many rooms, where do the priorities and things like this. So this actually then feeds into some of those device stories. It is something that I've been building on for the last five years, and I decided to pull it back and to share it with everyone because I really do think this. I think the industry we're in, video technology, I mean, we have a broader workplace communications and enterprise communications that I look at as well too, but this one narrow area of video-centric communications I think is a great bellwether of what technology investments in terms, especially device-forward investments look like throughout all of the office. These tend to be business continuity stories. They tend to be business communications. I need to communicate between my employees, my customers, my partners and what have you. And I think What we see taking place in that industry is a great measurement of what could potentially take place in other parts of investments. It might be workplace experience platform softwares. It might be, what's taking place on the phone systems and those type of devices as well too. It could impact what's taking place in terms of, rooms that I build out, which might be like experience centers. It might be in terms of how I build out customer deployment areas, things like that. So I It's a great bellwether to take a and kind of see is it a canary in the coal mine? Is there something we gotta be cautious of and watch for? So Yeah

Tom Arbuthnot: I think that's it. And I think it's, you've got your factors there on screen, people listening on the video, and we'll link the LinkedIn posts for people listening on the audio. The, economic conditions obviously, particularly the DRAM stuff and the AI stuff, 'cause it feels like AI is a positive influence in the sense of I'm definitely talking to enterprises right now where the business is excited about people recognition more or less purely for accurate transcriptions, purely for isn't it great to be able to capture everything automatically for every single meeting and the kind of work IQ story. So positive influence on AI, and then we've got AI jacking up the RAM prices and the compute prices, which is gonna jack up the prices of the rooms, which is a negative influence. So how do you see those two balancing out?

Craig Durr: You know, you're right, and that's what really impacted this. It's what I call the headwinds and the tailwinds taking place. So one of those things I look at are the economic conditions. The other category also that I look at is corporate spending and refresh cycles as well too. And then the last one is kind of those cost of goods gold, sold. So those economic conditions, you know- Two, three years ago, we were talking about tariffs. That was the big economic condition that was, that was taking place. And it was really impacting the US market, where EMEA was actually having great growths because they did not have the same tariffs that were politically driven like the US did at that point in time. I'm be- I'm being good here. I'm skating all political topics- Yeah.

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah I'm talking about. Yeah. We'll keep- The facts we'll keep that offline.

Craig Durr: But what's happened, you hit a very key idea. In the last 18 months, and it was in time for this forecast, costs of components for those OEMs have skyrocketed. In particular, memory. DRAM has gone through the roof. You and I can even see it just 'cause I wanna update my laptop of what that looks like, but every one of these devices has some element of memory built into it. And if you look at our industry in the last six to eight months, you've seen public statements about price adjustments due to RAM. Logitech announced a product in- increase coming on their quarterly earnings report. Hanneke, their CEO, made it part of their forecast, and their CFO. Crestron had to do it as well too. Neat all these manufacturers have had to adjust their cost of goods in terms of what's taking place in terms of that supply chain. That has impact, and that's why it's an important one that is impacting this forecast. It's kinda what I've aligned this to being what I called, kind of the whole story going into this next five years is kinda this two forces. It's a headwind and a tailwind. So that tailwind you and I have been talking about, which is that 20% refresh cadence, is really strong. MDEP is driving a lot of, uniformity across those Android markets, which is making a really strong statement as well too. There's platform requirements also updating to, "Hey, I You want to take advantage of AI? You gotta have this type of you know, this type of hardware, this type of capture, whatever else." So the tailwind pushing along the market has been strong, but the headwind has been what I call budget com- compression. And think of it this way Average selling prices of these devices had to go up because of those cost of goods sold. So a device that might've cost $5,000 last year is now costing 50- you know, 5,500, $6,000. I'm making up numbers roughly for- Yeah just for example again. But more importantly, on the purchase side, those IT professionals, they only have had a set amount of budget. So where I talked about that 20% refresh each year, and they might have refreshed 100 rooms for that 20% each there, now those prices have gone up. They might only be able to refresh 85 rooms as opposed to 100. Yeah. And so what happens is their footprint is less impact. So their budget more or less is staying the same. The number of devices sold are gonna go down, and that kind of has a compression effect on the overall revenue as well too. So at a high level, that's one of those key stories I see taking place, which is an element of our market, and that's within You asked me about how I do five years. That's within that 18 to 24-month foreseeable future. And so that's where we can model really strongly what are, what are the supply chain issues, what are gonna be the cost of goods sold, and how is that gonna impact ASPs, and what's the waterfall effect in terms of how that's gonna impact the market.

Tom Arbuthnot: And so what is the, what is the headline for the next couple of years, and then the five years, what's your current prediction?

Craig Durr: Yeah. So I had a, I've always had a modest, five-year compound annual growth rate. It was about 6% last year when I published it. And like I said, because I was year-over-year successful in hitting that mark, I felt good about that. This year, I've had to take that down to just under 3%. Compound annual growth rate. I know some people might get nervous about that, but, it's a more moderate growth rate. I'm saying for the next five years until we have something that changes, like DRAM prices go down, tariff certainty is kind of removed, other things in these macro events, that's what the forecast is looking like.

Tom Arbuthnot: Well, it's also interesting- Again, I am personally- because there is growth there, but actually there's a whole bunch of competition there. You know, we have new OEMs coming to the space with new devices. So there's a, there's a active fight for every part of that market, including the- Yeah the few percent of growth.

Craig Durr: And you're right about that. It's still growing and we're talking about a market that was, you know, approaching $4 billion per year of sales. In over five years they're still gonna sell $20 billion of devices, and I'm just talking the devices. I'm not talking about the licenses on top of that. I'm not talking about the peripherals. I'm not talking about other room installations. So there's a lot of money transacting in this space and it's growing. Don't get me wrong. And there's good value driving it. AI, like we said, these are some of the tailwinds, driving it out. I'm just more cautious because of that budget compression taking place.

Tom Arbuthnot: No, I think that's, I think that's fair. I mean, also you- you- you've got, you've gotta give back the like, it's all well and good giving people good news, but if it's not accurate, it's not actually useful. So I think it's, good to get an- Yeah accurate perspective about where you think it's gonna be.

Craig Durr: And if people wanna understand this, maybe we can share the link to the, LinkedIn article. They can dive into how I looked at all these different nine factors, how I weighted them, how I thought they impacted different markets and what it meant. Yeah,

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah. Now- We'll share, we'll share the links in the comments. So if you're listening to this, it'll be on the podcast feed and on the YouTube.

Craig Durr: Let me make one more point about this, but then I wanna share something new that came up since I published that report, and you and I were talking about it in the green room here for a little bit earlier. - With what I said, North America's still growing. EMEA, all markets are showing growth, let's be clear. EMEA was really strong in 2025, and I suspect it's gonna tampen down a little bit, but it's still gonna grow. The big variable has been Asia Pacific, where I actually It was really depressed in 2025, and it catching up actually has a bit of a growth change there. What does this mean? Well, for some of those English-speaking Asia Pacific markets like Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and things like that I think would be strong. India is a really key market that I'm watching here in the next year, in terms of a growth opportunity taking place as well too. You know, a lot of times people are very myopic thinking about North America or maybe just Western Europe. So I think these Asia Pacific markets are gonna be key to, maintaining some of that growth.

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah, which is interesting- I think- because then it's who are the OEMs and the partners and the systems that are popular in those regions, and they can be very different depending on who has that local market, has that channel, has that trust

Craig Durr: Exactly. And I know it's an area you've got some insights into it as well, and I do too. But it, you know, being North America based, it's a difficult market sometimes to get full grasp on. China is a very big black hole in terms of data in and data out, and there's a lot of interesting things that allow devices to be sold or not sold or what the, what the deals look like, especially since China has a China First policy in place as well too. So overall, North America is gonna continue to be highly competitive. It's still gonna grow, but like you said, it's where it Most people land and try and do their new products there. And as you and I were walking around the show floors, you were at Com- Commsverse, I think, just recently. Yep. I was at InfoComm. A lot of vendors that have shown up that you're like, "Well, who are you? You have a bar? You have an Android solution?" And so they're gonna be in a very highly competitive North America market. Same for EMEA, but EMEA has been really digging in and accelerating in terms of its adoption of those appliance-based solutions and those Android-based solutions. And you me- you

Tom Arbuthnot: Mentioned i- in the context of additional revenue opportunity, but I'm seeing the management platform, the support model, the extended support. That stuff is- Yeah starting to influence the conversation, like particularly in the bar market where, like, some bars undoubtedly are better than others, like audio optics. But for a customer who's happy with a minimum baseline, actually now it's manageability- Yeah tooling support model that can tip them one way or the other.

Craig Durr: Man, there's, some really exciting solutions in that MSP market right now. There's some companies I've been working with that in their IT management story or even their observability story of especially diving into what you can see in that Teams environment. I think you've also spoke to a company called Collective, who I've spoken to, really keen on their Teams, experience platform that they're building out as well too. There are some really strong, AI first, management stories that go across devices, so multi-vendor devices and what's taking place in the ecosystem, which is keen. NetSpeak's one of them. Excites leaning into that as well too. Utology is leaning into that as well too. So these management platforms are bringing higher value to these conversations now, which I think makes

Tom Arbuthnot: Them hard- Yeah. Reducing operational cost is a big one. Like I was with Irene- Yeah at the boot camp, talking about ProPortals and like a big push for ProPortals or Microsoft native management is- Yeah to enable easier management with AI, so you can run more devices with less resources, which is the pressure they were saying they're hearing everybody under in enterprise is I've only got You know, I've talked to customers on the podcast that are like, "We're a team of four running thousands of devices around the world. Yes, there are some local hands," but like they're Anything you can do on the manageability to enable scale management is gonna help people.

Craig Durr: But unfortunately, I am aware also of some headcount cuts taking place through some enterprise, clients that I work with and talk to, where their IT support staff, their IT staff is being reduced. Yeah. They're being asked to do more. So the importance of these tools become important. Yeah, and I don't wanna undersell the ProPortal, because there's a lot of value being pushed into there now, which is really interesting what's taking place. So

Tom Arbuthnot: Before we jump, I wanna get your take on Infocomm 'cause we were just off the back of that. So y- are you around talking to all the vendors and various people? What's your, what's your take on that?

Craig Durr: I do. I do wanna hit one last thing. Go on. I'm sorry if I'm gonna put you off of this. There's been a variable that comes up that I think it's really important for us to think about. This could be the thing that changes the forecast next year. Have you heard of a, of a LLM model called Mythos by chance? I

Tom Arbuthnot: Have. Okay. So as we speak, Fable is back. So, - the lightweight version of Mythos. Yeah. We, it came out last night again. So but yes

Craig Durr: Let me try and recap here in three to five minutes what I think how this could be highly impactful. So Mythos, if you're not familiar with it, obviously is a very strong, powerful model. What it was done was it was released to a core group of, technology providers before going public because they felt it was so powerful. I'm giving the remedial version of the story. But Mythos has the capability to not only look at vulnerabilities within ecosystem software, whatever else, it can overlay multiple, vulnerabilities, and therefore trying to figure out these ways that systems can be compromised. And it's a big deal because the complexity of figuring out these multiple overlays of vulnerabilities has been very difficult until this AI model's making this work done incredibly fast. Af- since I did this report, I had a chance to participate in Cisco Live. This is their annual customer event, and I had some great one-on-one conversations with some of their executive leaders, especially in the space around, networking, right, infrastructure, and enterprise, networking. Just, the story there is this. Cisco went in and rewrote and evaluated and rewrote some over a billion lines of code. This is how impactful Mythos could have been that they wanted to evaluate it. There's a lot of network devices that are in market that need their software update to now be protected. At the same time, there's a lot of switches, a lot of routers if I was in- in the UK, a lot of routers, that are also need to be updated but can't be. The software's so old 'cause infrastructure like that, people buy that asset, and they sweat it till it falls apart. So now Cisco is saying, "We are expecting a lot of money to be spent on hardware here in the next upcoming year because of Mythos." Other people, Palo Alto Labs and stuff like that, are also kind of saying the same story as well too.

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah, I think, and it's not- On- Mythos got the headlines, but, like, actually, GPT-5.6, the G- GM model, like, there's lots of things, models that are coming. So I think, yes, getting your devices into a, some kind of supported state where the OEM and/or- Yeah Microsoft are patching them is gonna be critical because you can't just have those old- Right Android 4, 5, 6, 7 devices still on the network. They're gonna be such- Right such easy pickings for security vulnerabilities potentially.

Craig Durr: Right, and that's gonna drive some refresh in our market. But for the most part, because we have Windows-based devices and Android-based devices that are patchable- I wouldn't say there's gonna be high ex- extreme level vulnerability within the video conferencing devices. There's some, don't get me wrong, but it's not a huge red flag. But go on

Tom Arbuthnot: Sh- it shouldn't be anything, it shouldn't be anything in support, in theory, and it shouldn't be i- if you've got a good OEM. And that's the thing- Right is the good OEM is actually looking after the devices and packaging regional, and that's part of that different podcast for a different day. But part of that MDEP conversation is Microsoft trying to force the patch cycle- Right a little bit more.

Craig Durr: And that's where MDEP comes in, which is a very, helpful, model there. Yeah. But this is where it impacts. I'm gonna go back to my original story about an IT professional who's got a set budget. I can buy 100 rooms. I refresh 100 rooms every year. Now it's compressed down to 85 because of these DRAM prices and now ASPs have gone up. Go one step up to that larger organization. Now that CFO is getting a message from their CIO, "Hey, our enterprise network, because of Mythos, is way out of date. We've got to spend money now to fix this. This is a high priority. We're highly vulnerable." Cisco did say they did talk to some organizations that put together special budgets just to Mythos protect themselves or to do that. But for the most part, most organizations won't, and they're gonna have to borrow money from other areas of their IT spend to update that highly exposed area. Unfortunately, I think that's gonna impact the video devices, the UC collaboration business as well too. I think that's gonna be some of the money that's gonna be borrowed to help mitigate some of these Mythos concerns. And other areas will as well too. Pet projects might be delayed. So people are gonna really be crunched on their budgets, not only in terms of ASPs going up, but now their CFO is gonna say, "Hey, I can't give you that full amount I, you asked for and budgeted because we have this dire situation with Mythos." Yeah, we have to go and do the firewalls or go and do the- I network

Tom Arbuthnot: Equipment.

Craig Durr: And that's the a moment. I don't have an answer, but this is what I'm watching keenly. This is the signals I'm getting, and it's my job to separate the signals from the noise that have me concerned. So I'm gonna watch this going throughout the year and try and monitor how much IT spend is being borrowed from this particular area, devices, to take, you know, to do other things within the enterprise. So I wanted to leave everyone with that because everyone needs a cliffhanger here. Everyone's gotta

Tom Arbuthnot: Well, you know- follow the story along. So I, we were joking in the green room, but, you came in pretty spot on next year. So I've set a calendar entry for next year to see if, see if you're still spot on. Yeah.

Craig Durr: I love it. And so let's go back to what you were asking about, Infocomm. It was And there's a lot of vendors out there, man, right? And now as a buyer, I need to start thinking about not just low cost. Maybe it's a new vendor who's on the peripherals of the Infocomm space. That's kind of the tell that they're new in market and they might be a ODM, but now they're starting to go direct to the enterprise or something like that I've gotta make sure they're not just giving me inexpensive devices. I've gotta make sure they have the software support, the maintenance, and things like that to along the way to help me both to be AI ready for the positive features I wanna have, but also as a defense posture to make sure I'm not gonna be exposed to any new vulnerabilities coming up in this AI world. It's a lot of stuff, man

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah, and it's, there's a real wide field of different options, not just the different device types, but then the different OEMs. So, yeah, not an easy decision. I think as an OEM, you've gotta have the complete story of quality device- Yeah trust, management platform. Like, that's where it comes together for the enterprise.

Craig Durr: It is. And you and I are fortunate. We have a front row seat. It's the armchair. We're, it's like we're watching the World Cup of- IT spend, and what's taking place. And we're coming just off of USA winning, last night against Bosnia, so, - Yeah, England too yesterday you know, we're looking forward. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. But my point is, we're observers, and I think we have a good view because there's different data points coming from the vendors, from the IT professionals doing the buying, the partners in the middle who actually have the negotiate those conversations as well too. And then there's outside sources too, which is above our business unit level conversations to where I I'm fortunate that I get to have some of these C-level conversations and understand how the C-suite is thinking about their IT spend overall.

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah, and I'm excited in the sense of the business is engaged in the AI conversation. So, it's not often tech gets the proper business side's attention. And definitely that idea of like, not because they wanna make people communicate better, but the idea of capturing all the information and being efficient about knowing what's going on and work IQ is, on the positive side, definitely getting some attention. But equally, I think there's too many OEMs in the market for that amount of growth, and there will be some kind of hard competition- Yeah and attrition there, and we'll see. You know, again, placing your bets right is gonna be really important.

Craig Durr: I agree. And I wanna, I wanna recap here a second because you're right. I'm spending time talking about what I'm calling those headwinds, those things compressed in the budget right now. But there's a lot of great tailwinds that are pushing our market forward, which I'm really excited about. I mean, you and I have just come off a lot of these great shows. Ilya just had a fantastic, keynote- Yeah at Infocomm. The brain,

Tom Arbuthnot: The

Craig Durr: Brain in the room

Tom Arbuthnot: Conversation is

Craig Durr: Really exciting. And Espen was up there too for Cisco and of course, Cisco plays into the Microsoft Teams, ecosystem as well too. Both of these gentlemen presented some really compelling stories about, the brain in the room creating more value, increasing productivity, was kind of Ilya's point of view. Cisco and Espen lead into the fact that we are, we are just an AI infrastructure. You should think of your place as being AI infrastructure, and these rooms are an important endpoint that play into a larger story about your AI value you get out. So I mean, all that stuff is still positive spin. I don't wanna leave a, harsh concern in the market. I'm just saying there is new variables that might dampen what we see taking place in this forward momentum.

Tom Arbuthnot: Awesome. Great. Well, thanks for sharing so much. If people wanna find out the gritty details, we'll share links to get in touch with you and, talk about subscriptions and, getting into really nitty-gritty detail, but appreciate you sharing so much with the community. And, we'll catch up again soon. If not, if not before, in exactly a year's time to see what your percentage rate hit rate was for next year.

Craig Durr: We're we're we have to make a place a bet here, whatever it's gonna be, right? It's gonna be a, it's gonna be a pint what we'll do,

Tom Arbuthnot: Right? Yeah. We can do a, we can do a pint next time you're over. Well, actually, that's in a few weeks, so we'll see if I see you.

Craig Durr: Exactly. We'll do that and some fish and chips. But, yeah, I really appreciate it. And if anyone has any questions, I am always interested. And if anyone has any differing points of view, I don't claim to have the sole view, and I would love to be informed of what people often say. I said that last time. You know who the first person who reached out? Our good friend Jimmy Vaughn. He's like, "Hold on, Craig." This It was, it was on a different story. He's like, "I'm seeing this here. What Tell me, how's this aligned to this?" Nice. Nice. I invite those conversations. So they're great.

Tom Arbuthnot: Awesome. Well, thanks so much, Craig. Talk again soon.

Craig Durr: I appreciate it, Tom. Thanks for having me.