 Welcome to Pinnacle TV, your source for video collaboration news. I'm Jamie Scato-Cutaya. With me today to talk about the complexities and challenges and next generation opportunities for business video use, we've got Mr. Dan Tonnell, he's the CTO of Pinnacle. Pinnacle, as you know, is a company hyper-focused on delivering best-in-class video collaboration solutions to its customers, as well as Mr. Jordan Owens, he's the Vice President of the Americas of Pexip. Pexip is an award-winning vendor of enterprise-grade communications infrastructure. Also, we should note, recently certified by Microsoft. Gentlemen, welcome to Pinnacle TV. Thank you. Thank you. Good to be here. And recently, it's been announced that Pinnacle has earned its gold partner status for both its service provider as well as resale partner businesses with Pexip. Could you describe, and Dan will start with you first here, the long-standing relationship between the two companies? Absolutely, and we're very proud of this accomplishment. We've actually been together with Pexip since 2013, so it's a five-year long-standing relationship where we work very closely at putting together solutions for our customers, both from a cloud perspective as well as an on-prem. And when we look to deploy the first note across our global network with Pexip, some of the key things that were very important from our perspective was certainly the business culture that Pexip brings to the party in terms of focusing on the user experience, the technology itself in terms of its interoperability and the evolution of that, and lastly the rapid development to respond to the market demands in terms of a next-generation platform. Yeah, absolutely. So in a similar fashion, you know, we really enjoyed our relationship that we've had with Pinnacle as they've evolved as an organization as well. One of the key things is, you know, we started this relationship from as a young company just kind of emerging and trying to bring some of the game-changing technology that Dan just referred to in his discussion. And then we also were looking for organizations that were willing to evolve as well, that wanted to grow and wanted to help change the game inside the industry. And we looked at those organizations, such as Pinnacle, who had a large global reach, who had a 24-7, 365 services operation that could not only just stand behind the technology that they were running behind the scenes, but also focus on the end user and making sure that the end user had connectivity, making sure that the end user had the support and services that they needed as well. So it really truly formed a nice marriage between the two organizations with us both focused on the exact same problems and solving them using our own expertise across the board. And how does the relationship impact the industry and your customer communities? Jordan, would you like to take this one first? Yeah, that's a great question. And it's somewhat, it always evolving, right? I mean, the impact to the user is one of those things that is this somewhat nebulous term that a lot of organizations use and a lot of companies use that doesn't necessarily truly mean anything when you translate it into day-to-day activity. However, in this case, I think it actually is truly accurate. And it's really about focusing on simplifying the joint experience, simplifying the meeting experience, simplifying the interaction with the technology. Both Pinnacle and Pexit truly believe that technology is nothing more than plumbing behind the scenes. It shouldn't be something that end users ever interact with, right? People don't want to buy technology anymore. They want to buy solutions to their problems. They want to interact better as a community. They want to make decisions faster. They want to reach more people with less time. They want to get on the road less. Whatever the actual driving reason behind the adoption of technology is, doesn't truly matter. And I think both our organizations are focused on that. How do we abstract technology from the actual end user consumption and focus on what they truly want and what they truly need in a day-to-day basis and help them execute better within their business, with their customers and their partners, and so on? I think one of the things I want to highlight on what Jordan just said was, customers aren't necessarily interested in that technology. They need it to perform absolutely, but they're really buying an experience. And they're very much focused on we're trying to drive a digital transformation strategy with an organization. We're trying to support the mobile workforce. How do we do that? And they're looking for a solution provider that has the proper operational support model. And obviously, the underlying technology, the next generation, the ability to interrupt because customers have very diverse environments in terms of the endpoint technology they have, the infrastructure that they have, and they're looking for platforms like Paxip that can take care of the interoperability organizations like Pinnacle that can take care of the managed service wrap around that 24 by 7 around the clock so they can deliver that best experience to their end users. Yeah, the reality is that collaboration technology is no longer just a nice to have. It's now a mission critical application for every organization around the world, right? And in order to do that, you have to have technology on which you can rely. You have to have the user experience that is simple and straightforward. You have to have the organization standing behind that technology that when something does go wrong, they're there and they can pick up the phone and they can answer whatever it is that you need to answer. And without three of those things working in true unison, the solution doesn't actually perform. And what's the point at that point? And the other thing I would add is if you think about the industry, even five years ago, Jordan, this video application was this silo off to the side outside of the IT governance. It was procured differently. It was supported differently. And now you take that and you kind of put it on its side, slice it inside of a UCNC stack. So all of the integration points with the rest of the UCNC applications is critical and that's where the future is. So we're very excited about what this platform can do for us and our customers. Now let's talk Microsoft. Jordan, what impact has Microsoft had on the evolution of the video collaboration industry? You know, they've changed it all. They've changed everything about it. And I think one of the most important factors of what Microsoft has truly brought to the table is a different view on technology away from the technology back to workflow, back to the user. You know, you think about it from the everyday interaction. When everybody starts their day, what's the first thing that they look at, right? It's some level of collaboration through email, through social media, through, you know, if you're a salesperson, things like salesforce.com or other CRM systems. All of these different things that you want to enable you to do your job better and then seamlessly escalate that into other conversations. And that's exactly what Microsoft has brought to the table, is they've shifted the focus in its entirety away from a meeting being a meeting being very structured, very controlled, very, I'm going to schedule this to happen from 1 to 2 p.m. and at 1 the meeting is going to start and at 2 o'clock the meeting is going to end and we're all going to go back to our everyday lives. Microsoft has blurred that line in its entirety. And now what they're talking about is an interaction. You know, you and I may interact for 15 minutes in the morning, for 30 minutes just before lunch, for 20 minutes at the end of the day. And we should have that flexibility to interact in smaller bits and bytes so that we can actually solve real problems rather than go into a meeting to talk about work, leave the meeting and all go our separate ways to do the work. This way we can actually interact throughout the day. And that's what they've done, right? You look at it from the ability to schedule a quick meeting inside Outlook, to escalating a meeting from a point-to-point chat to video to small multi-party conference. You look at the ability to go in and out of the various forms of technology, go from word into a video meeting, go from a video meeting into an email, go from an email into a chat session. All of those minutias, if you will, are now one and the same and break down those barriers. So, you know, I know it's a bunch of different things, but the reality is they've changed everything and they've shifted it from talking about the technology in and of itself to talking about workflow and user experience. Dan, Microsoft a game changer, do you agree? Absolutely a game changer. I think if I think about the last game changer, I would say it was John Chambers years and years and years ago who started to talk about telepresence and immersive telepresence. And it basically took the conversation outside of that board group and traditionally that's where video has been used, elevated it up into this immersive experience. And, you know, here we are years later and now it's what's the next change in Microsoft, absolutely I agree with Jordan, is changing the game in terms of now moving this down into the desktop, moving it into the masses where people are using this as a day-to-day interaction, enhancing that communication like we're doing here today, right? We're all in three different cities and we're having this dialogue, you know, for a number of folks to kind of listen into and get some insight into our industry. I find it really interesting that when you look at the rollout of any type of technology, there's technology, there's business processes in this culture. And I think the technology is there, I think the business process, Microsoft's doing a fantastic job in terms of the workflow, the scheduling, making it easy for people to engage. But one of the interesting things now starting to surface is actually the business culture. And what are we going to do to get people to turn on those cameras, right? You go into a number of meetings and you're like, why am I the only person that has my video on, right? And you start to think about the folks that are working from home and all of a sudden now they're, they need to be business ready. That remote office worker needs to be business ready. And in our lives, you know, Jordan and I live this every single day, we're on video calls and that's all we do. We're talking to people around the globe and we're basically virtually visiting countries around the world day in, day out by just sitting at our desk. But there is a risk that people don't turn those cameras on. So as part of an overall usage and adoption program, and we've got to take in the box with some great technology. We've got to take in the box around workflow and applications that are integrated. The next one we really need to focus on from an industry perspective is turning that camera on, getting people to be the advocate to want to use video and get all the benefits, you know, from that type of interaction. Companies in all sectors are really facing this rapid digital transformation internally, which is causing a lot of complexity and change in daily business. So Dan, I'll start with you first. How does Pinnacle and Pexip really help to ease those pressures and changes and complexity for your customers? Yeah, I think when you look at our customers and where they are in their digital transformation strategy, you know, they're really looking at how are they going to take their workforce and drive more efficiency, increase the collaboration requirements to connect people around the globe. And that virtual workforce is, you know, very beneficial in terms of getting access to talent from around the world, accessing that talent when required, giving people the work-life balance that they're also looking for. And there's challenges that IT are facing. The human resources folks are facing as well as the facilities folks who are figuring out what they're going to do with their physical footprints in their offices. So customers are looking for a partner for the journey. They're not looking for point solutions. They're looking for some, you know, a company that can lead in front, but have an ecosystem as Jordan just mentioned that can deliver all the bits and pieces, right? We're all experts in certain elements of the overall solution. And the good news for the customer is when you see those partnerships being formed and you see those teaming relationships, then they're going to get the best of the best. And customers are really looking for an end-to-end service for their user community. And it's really now at the conferencing level. So independent of various components, whether it's some infrastructure, whether it's some endpoints, whether it's the network, they're just looking at it from a, hey, I had a meeting and it was very successful, and I would do that same meeting again, right? That's what the users are looking for. And they're really excited about the solutions that Pexip and Pinnacle are bringing forward to help them solve those business initiatives. Jordan, final words? Yeah, I think Dan, you hit the nail on the head with that one, right? And I think it does somewhat bring the conversation itself full circle, where we started off talking about how people aren't buying technology, they're buying solutions. And I think digital transformation and this concept of how do I actually augment my solution or my organization, I should say, with technology is a perfect example of that. That nobody, the reality is that integrating technology into business processes, integrating technology into solutions that organizations provide, increases complexity by an exponential amount. Every time you add a single piece of technology, complexity certainly goes up. That being said, the value that you get for that increased complexity can far outweigh the costs. And it's not only a cost from a typical view of cost, where I'm writing a check for x number of dollars or what have you, but also the view of cost from what does this mean to me, the end user in terms of my day-to-day life? Is my scheduling experience going to get more complicated? Can I still have ad hoc calls? Can I still enable email to work in a better way or chat or social media or what have you? How can I evaluate the total cost of my day-to-day life? And I think what these organizations are now doing, these apps, if you will, if you want to look at it from that perspective, is we are all about solving the complexity problem down to the end user level. We're not trying to hide behind the fact that adding PECSIP into a solution is going to increase complexity. It does on some level, that's no doubt. But the value that you get for that complexity and our work to minimize the amount of complexity that is there far outweighs any of the costs associated with it, the licensing costs, the user costs, the workflow costs, the flexibility costs, the travel costs, all of that stuff that you save as an organization far outweighs the additional complexity in there. And I think that there's a lot of value that's being created in that, then as a result, enabling businesses to look at things. And granted, we're just a small cog in the greater wheel to progress, right? I mean, we're just part of a greater solution. And that's what's so exciting about organizations like Pinnacle is they're not looking at it solely from a collaboration perspective. They're looking at the holistic view. And so what we can come in is we can come in and be our experts. We can solve a specific problem. We can help organizations leverage their technology and their communications architecture in a greater way. And then we can work hand in hand with Pinnacles of the world. And Dan and his team are phenomenally good at this to then say, but that's not all, Mr. and Mrs. Customer, we can do so much more as well. And here's how we can solve a lot of that other complexity around it, right? And then, oh, by the way, if it ever does break in the future, give us a call. We'll make sure it gets fixed immediately. Thank you, gentlemen. Such an exciting time in the video collaboration industry. A lot of challenges, but also a lot of really great opportunities. Thank you for your insight and thank you viewers for tuning in to Pinnacle TV.