INTERVIEW Nigel Hawthorn - McAfee
Huddle Opportunity
Conferencing specialist Konftel has just turned thirty years old and are still offering partners value in a market which
is evolving more rapidly than ever. On the eve of their latest launch, Konftel’s Tommy Edlund, Director of Global Sales
and Jeff May, Regional Sales Director, spoke to Comms Business about the Huddle Room opportunity for partners
Comms Business
Magazine (CBM): What is
your assessment of the
conferencing landscape right
now?
Tommy Edlund (TE): e
conference business is quite
exciting right now. e huddle
room concept is exploding.
e conference phone
business is growing at about
6-8% per year in general. If
you compare that with the
huddle room space… that is
growing at 50% year on year.
ere is a huge demand from
customers for solutions that
combine conferencing and
video for small numbers of
users, typically 3-5 people.
Some people still want the
big meeting rooms but more
often we are seeing demand
for spontaneous meetings in
smaller spaces or discussion
rooms. Lots of companies are
distributed internationally and
they want a quick and easy
video and audio solution. ere
are over 32 million huddle
rooms globally right now, but
only a small fraction of them
are video enabled according to
Frost and Sullivan. Price points
for video conference equipment
have come down and are a lot
more a ordable these days,
especially when you compare
them to the traditional big
conferencing room systems.
CBM: Tell us about your
new platform you have just
launched
TE: We have just announced
the Konftel 800, available
mid year, which is a hybrid
conference phone (SIP/USB/
Bluetooth) that meets the
needs arising from the rapid
migration to VoIP platforms
and improved audio quality. At
the same time it’s addressing
the growth in the huddle room
segment, where USB is the
main mode of connection.
Jeff May (JM): e Konftel
800 will also be part of
our video conference kit
(Konftel C50800 Hybrid)
with the Konftel Cam50, a
PTZ conference camera with
exceptional image quality
and 12x optical zoom. e
Konftel OCC Hub brings all
the devices together,
so a single USB cable
is all you need to
connect the camera,
the conference phone
and the screen to your
laptop. e hybrid
concept also provides
the freedom to
welcome participants
via regular phone
calls.
We are bringing
something which the
channel can bring
to every customer
and serve whatever
meeting requirements
they have in any
location. More
importantly, they
can make money on
it, this product is
not just a ordable
for customers, the
resellers can make
good margin on
that also. Resellers
don’t think they
can make money
on video because
it’s too expensive
or too specialised
or complicated to
support. Others are of the
opinion that a customer can
just go out and buy all this
stu themselves and there is
no role for the Channel, we
completely disagree and are
being very Channel focused in
our approach.
CBM: What problems
are these new solutions
addressing?
TE: People bring their
computers into meeting rooms
and often have to deal with
hassle of connecting multiple
cables, that might not be
supported by their devices.
In our setup we just have one
cable and it works for every
computer (USB).
Customers want to bring
their own device when it
comes to conferencing. ey
want to bring their laptop
in which might be running
Teams, Zoom or something
else. e audio and video has
to be good, and it has to work
perfectively from the start so
those meetings can be e ective
straight away. Meetings
are now shorter and more
Tommy Edlund, Director of Global Sales
frequent, there has to be an
e cient setup because people
can lose half the meeting
time just trying to make the
technology work.
CBM: The selling opportunity
for partners?
JM: Partners can now go back
to their customers and upsell
these new solutions. All of
our video kits are compatible
with our USB audio devices,
a lot of which are already out
in the eld. Any reseller that
has sold Konftel now has
that upsell opportunity and
it is a really e ective way for
their customers to get better
collaboration solutions because
they already have the audio
device.
We have complete bundles
from a small room up to a
20 person room as a kit that
resellers can buy as they need.
For the existing customers
which already have Konftel
audio we are putting special
promotions out there so they
can get high de nition video
for the rst time.
Je May, Regional Sales Director
34 | Comms Business Magazine | April 2019 www.commsbusiness.co.uk
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