TalkingHeadz with Scott Wharton

I was conflicted when Scott Wharton announced his plans to leave enterprise comms to save the world.  I was elated the world would now be saved, but what a loss. It was like one of those be-careful-what-you-wish-for episodes of the Twilight Zone.  - Dave Michels. 

Scott Wharton is a seasoned expert in enterprise comms and video, with a notable career spanning influential roles at Broadsoft, Vidtel (a company he founded and sold), and Logitech. 

His vision and leadership have always aimed to revolutionize the industry by enabling seamless communications across modalities and platforms. His insights into the complexities and missed opportunities within the enterprise video space continue to shape the industry's ongoing discourse, highlighting the challenges and potential for future advancements.

At Logitech, he worked to mitigate the impact of the industry's trend towards platform-specific ecosystems.  Wharton's commitment to innovation and user-friendly solutions remains evident in his current role as CEO of Tandem PV, a solar energy company. 

Transcript

Dave Michels: 0:12

Hello! And welcome to another talking points. Chats today I'm with Dave Danto and Scott Wharton. Hello, Scott!

Scott Wharton: 0:21

Hey? How's it going.

Dave Michels: 0:22

It's great to see you again. Let me just briefly introduce you. Scott is the CEO of a company called Tandem Pv and and and I I've known Scott. I don't know. I I think maybe I met you at Broadsoft. I certainly knew you at Vidtel. I found him to be articulate and wise, and it was a huge loss for enterprise communications and video when he left to go save our planet at a Sustainable power company. So it's great to see you again, Scott and we wanna we want to get to the interesting stuff around Enterprise Video. But I thought we better start off with some obligatory stuff about your new gig. So how's it going in tandem? Pv. And when are you coming back to Enterprise? Comms.

Scott Wharton: 1:10

Well, yeah, I mean, it's going really. Well, I've been at I've been attending. Pd, now. Pv, now for about over a year, and I think you noted in some of the notes that I I tend to stay at companies for about 7, 8 years, and I was at logitech for about 8 years. So it's a little more than a year. So I feel like I'm ramping up in the learning curve. And you know, building one of the world's best solar panels that will hopefully help save the planet. We'll hopefully talk more about that. But it's been fun.

David J. Danto: 1:37

Why did you make the change? Well, why, why the change? Not just the the change of roles. We all change roles. But why that specific space.

Scott Wharton: 1:46

I mean, I think it was a couple of things. I think one thing that most people don't know about me is that when I was in business school 1 million years ago. I did my internship at the Solar Energy Industry Association, and my goal was to get into solar, and I fell in love with Solar, but it was way too early in the industry. So I was kind of depressed moping around, you know, school, trying to figure what to do. And I'm like, Hey, there's this Internet voice over IP thing. So I ended up having, you know, a journey, I'd say, like a decades long pivot into communications which I loved, but I still kept up with solar, and I think now where the world that is at the industry is at the industry is mature, the world is on fire, and I thought it was a good opportunity for me to use my skill set to do something that was. you know that that would help in that area. And I certainly think that communications is valuable from a clean point of view, and that we're helping people do video and not flying, etc. But I I just felt like there was a desire to do something different more. And I found the right team and the alright opportunity, and and I took it.

Dave Michels: 2:47

I I love what you're doing, Scott. I I got a lot of passion around that myself back in 2,008. I put in a huge solar array on my roof, and then, of course, had an argument with my neighbor about their trees that they just planted at the same time. And then I I've I've updated that whole system about 10 years ago, and that was also pretty exciting and rewarding. I've I've got 2 evs. I'm I'm now researching heat, pumps and stuff. And so so I love what you're doing. I think all this stuff is the future. Now you run. I run into a lot of people that you know think it's all a sham or distraction. They don't like green energy. They think it's a waste of time time. I imagine you run into some of those people, too. How do you? What do you say to those people?

Scott Wharton: 3:31

I think part of what people don't understand is that the industry has changed so dramatically even the last few years. So you said you installed your last system 10 years ago. So what most people don't know listening is that solar has has declined in cost by 90% 9 0 in the last 10 years. So I think a lot of people's mindset has not kept up with the changes. So Solar used to be this expensive green thing that you did if you were, you know, only environmentally friendly. Now, it's the cheapest source of energy on the planet. And part of what I'm going to do is drive the cost down. you know, even lower. So I think you know one of the drivers. Obviously you want clean energy, but I think the bigger driver is greed. It's just the cheapest way to go. And I think most people's mindsets have not caught up with some of the facts. It's cheaper than wind natural gas, coal, nuclear by far more than anything, and.

David J. Danto: 4:23

Ben. when industry associates in the industry that that I've made the decision. All they want to tell me about is how much they're selling the energy back to the energy grid. How much money they're making, not just on their use, but what they're making in terms of cash. So so it's it's something that's very popular amongst them.

Scott Wharton: 4:40

Yeah, I mean. So to give you an example, last year in the Us. Of all the new energy, it was added, solar was about 70% of it. In China. They they built more solar last year in China than the United States has deployed in our history. There's a lot of good stuff happening in the world in solar that I think most people don't know, because it's it's 1 of these exponential curves that you know. I think our human minds feebly. You know it's hard for us to kind of get our heads.

Dave Michels: 5:06

You know.

Scott Wharton: 5:06

That's what's happening.

Dave Michels: 5:08

No, no, you. The tech has changed, and you know your company is called tandem. Pv. So normally, Pv. Stands for photovoltaic maybe it does in your case, too. But I I was reading about your company, and it uses a pearl viscite based tandem panels. What is that.

Scott Wharton: 5:26

Yeah. So we're we're we're building a technology called Perovskites. It's a crystalline structure. It was a was found about 200 years ago by Dr. Perovsky. And it basically is this miracle semiconductor. It is a photovoltaic, too. And basically what it does is it's 200 times thinner than traditional silicon. It uses only about 10% of the energy to make it. And the reason why our company is called tandem is we actually take the current technology in silicon and ours. And we create a solar panel sandwich. That's why the name is tandem. And the value of that is you can basically get capture a lot more sun than you can the silicon panel. So, for example, your panel on your roof well, today's panels are about 2021% efficient. So that means for every 100 beams of light that get captured, 20 get turned to electrons. We're already at 27% going up to 30. So we're already 30% better than what's out there. And that's part of what this new technology will do. Both make it better and cheaper. Which is kind of what we need right through. And I also decided that, why did I jump into this area? I really like innovating, coming up with new things? And I'm I don't really like when people just yell at people to do the right thing because it's good. I I like, I like that people do the right thing because it's good for them also. And I thought, this is a way to kind of harvesting skills that I had over. You know, many years like you guys to be able to innovate in this particular area. And I think so far, it's. you know, it's going really. Well, we now have a world record for solar efficiency. So we're kind of the world's technology leader in Silicon Valley. And we're on the verge of building our our 1st factory to be the 1st Perovsko factory in the Us. So. having fun.

Dave Michels: 7:06

Now. I looked over your Linkedin profile preparing for this interview, and I did see a clear pattern of your 8 year. Itch you spent 8 years at Broadsoft, 8 years at Vidtel, 8 years at Logitech, and I'm assuming 8 years in high school. Now, of those of those 24 years. Which job do you think most prepared you to be, CEO of tandem? I'm assuming good. Tell.

Scott Wharton: 7:34

I mean, you know, I think what we would all say is, every job in some way prepares you for the next one. I think Vidtel was great in that. I think there's a very big difference between being CEO of a startup and advice like I. I was a senior leader at Broadsoft for 8 years, but there's a difference between advising and doing so. I think that helped a lot. I I would also say I think I learned a lot about logitech, about how to be a leader, how to apply ideas at scale. And also there's a lot of value in working at a larger company and really understanding how it works to be able, especially when you're working with utilities, to be able to understand the mindset of how bigger companies work, I think, one of you, one of the days you've worked a lot with bigger companies. So you understand, like going from big to small, like how valuable that is. So I think I think probably a lot of both. But you know, I think I applied a lot of what I learned at Logi. Partly because I was really lucky. It was an internal start up within a big company, and I think what most people don't know is, when I started. I think the group was about 50 people and 62 million dollars, of which most of the revenue was the BCC. 950 and C 9, 30 webcam. So essentially, we were just even that revenue was kind of retail ish. So we kind of built the group from scratch with a small group up to over a billion dollars a year. And so kind of went from internal startup to big. So I think that experience is also hopefully going to help me here, do the same thing.

David J. Danto: 8:58

So. So let's let's do take advantage of that. That segue a little bit there, and talk about you know where enterprise communications is right now, you know, when you started up, Vidtel, you had a vision. A lot of people at the time. Other companies, other individuals, myself included, had a vision that we should be, you know, doing video telephony. We should be doing anything, can call anything anywhere. It should just all immediately connect. And and I guess if I'm being fair and and external to the whole space, I I would probably say that vision lost that. That's not really the direction that we're going in right now, you know, we seem to have some new quasi monopolies that are doing. And and what do you think about that? I mean? Was it still the right thing? Is it still the right thing for the future? Are we in a bubble, or did we just lose the opportunity? And these monopolies are going to be the way to go.

Scott Wharton: 9:46

Yeah. So I I think when we say Vittel, it was 2,008. We were the 1st ones to use Amazon web services for video like arguing the 1st cloud based video conferencing service from that perspective. And I would say, I kind of had a half right and half wrong. So let's deal the wrong part. I think the wrong part I had is I had this idea of interoperability like the pstn. Clearly that has not happened. I think it will never happen. It's more like instant messaging or on your phone where you have an app base. So I think from that perspective you do have. Anybody can call anybody just like we did. It's fairly easy, but it's it's done in a proprietary way, and just like I am. It's got. You know, you have multiple apps. I think video conferencing collaboration will will be the same way. And and I think part of the reason why that works is, it's just easier to innovate from one app to another as opposed to having some global standards. I think that is lost. That was kind of the vision that I had part of it for Vidtel and you know. At the same time we can talk about where the industry has gone. I think there are things like direct guest join, which as a small medium business now running video are magical like, I could not run the business without that. But it still kind of sucks like it's it's okay, like, I'd like to see it more like your iphone where you have a full, robust app versus these neutered apps that that have this kind of mindset of a scarcity like it. We need to shrink the experience and make it be worse and shitty versus just giving people a full experience, like, I think it's 1 area where I think the industry has got part in the way there, but it could do a lot better, especially as a small medium business where, I can tell you, I switch back and forth every day between teams and Google and and Zoom, and sometimes Tencent, others.

Dave Michels: 11:30

That that's kind of changing now with AI, because the way they're taking notes and everything, it's getting a little scattered. But but I I wanna go back to on. You know, you had a great run at Logi. You. You know, you talked about this transformation of of a small to a larger business. you inherited, as I recall you, you mentioned it? The BCC. Well, what product was that? The the.

Scott Wharton: 11:52

Acc. 950. Kind of.

Dave Michels: 11:54

The BCC.

Scott Wharton: 11:54

Stack.

Dave Michels: 11:55

Yeah, rolls up, rolls off the rolls off the tongue. And and when you left company the products had, you know, more natural names. Here's here's the brio but the things that do roll off the tongue. I wanna ask you, you know, over those 8 years which of those products was to you the most exciting, and why? But you.

Scott Wharton: 12:19

Well, I mean. it's a hard question, because I think so many of them, for different reasons, I think, go through a few of them meet up, I think, was a kind of an iconic product, because I think we changed the industry structure from at the time, if you remember, like, everything was a speaker phone. And you know, we we use what people will call design thinking to say, All right, how is this the right way to do it. And I think what we realize is, why is the why are people looking down at this plastic box at a table? Is that the right way to communicate, or should the audio be where the human faces, we said it should really be there. So we kind of came up with this idea, and, as you can imagine, we got incredible amount of resistance from the market. Internally, like, you cannot change the way people work. Everyone is used to using a speaker phone. This is the way Cisco and life size and Poly at the time dominated the market. But we did. But that was really hard and meet up is now the best selling video product ever. I think we've sold well over a million units. I mean, that was one I would say, even on the audio side. Sorry in the software side, I think what we did with auto framing and AI and continue to do is really revolutionary, and that it, instead of having one little dot with sharing like it, really allows you to see people effectively rather than just see a bunch of ants in a meeting. I also love site. our site product, but we were the 1st ones to have a center of the room camera. I think that was another interesting example where we we initially said we should copy Cisco because Cisco is really smart. And they must have the right idea. And we did some prototypes with 4 brio's at the front of the room, and we found out it's kind of terrible. It doesn't really change the angle that much, and then we came up with a prototype, where we did 4 brios hacked up in the middle of the room. We're like that kind of works. So then we it took us a long time to get that product right, but I'm proud of that. And then I'm on a logic off right now which has not done as commercially as well. But I think we took a whole bunch of different concepts around speaker phone and video controls and a dock, and we put them all into one product, and it's still one of my favorites. So I think there's a bunch of stuff that we have a lot to be proud of that are still doing well, and I didn't even talk about Rally Bar, and you know whole bunch of other things.

David J. Danto: 14:26

Well, you have the the terrific opportunity to have the the both sides of the bathroom door perspective. You know you're you're providing the the technology for people to use for this kind of collaboration for for a very long time. And now you find yourself in the role of having to use these tools as part of your day to day business give us. Is there any insight there that you know? Maybe you see it differently now that you're on this side of the camera as opposed to the manufacturing side? Or or are there things that you're seeing? You now agree with you like the the logic that used, or or that you disagree with what? What's that insight now that the perspective has changed.

Scott Wharton: 15:03

Yeah, it's a great question, especially cause my company is 25 people. So I am the head of it. And I run the video conferencing both procurement and setup and all that. And I would say that I think a lot of the solutions. What I found, even from a logitech point of view are really geared to very large companies that have armies of people who know how to set up and configure things. and I would say it is very, very difficult to do that practically at a small medium business. I'm just in a couple of examples. You know, we have this idea of Onetouch to join meetings which I think is brilliant. But I can't tell you how hard it was to set up a zoom room with Google calendaring just almost impossible. And part of it was, I have an outsourced it firm. They couldn't figure it out. I couldn't figure it out, and I've been the industry. I've been literally building the menus. I went to Google support. They don't know anything about Zoom Rooms. Right? They're like, Oh, we'll help you. Do Google meet like, I want to do Google meet you go to Zoom. They don't know anything about calendaring. So I got stuck in the middle of this vortex, where I I probably take for granted that you know Hsbc has 10 people who know how to set this up, and once you've got it, set it up, and then The other thing, I would say, is the complexity of the menus, for now for teams and zoom, they have so many features. It is so complicated. I I literally spent hours on a bunch of things like, how do you turn off the waiting room? And how do you do the security thing. And how do you stop needing the coast and the co-host? And they're just so much complexity that I think if you're an Smb. it's just overwhelming, and I think it kind of reinforces. Why, I think someone like meeting Al is doing well because the stuff is great, but it's just too hard for most. Smb's just put an owl in the middle kind of works. It's kind of sucks, too, but it's easy.

David J. Danto: 16:50

Well, I think that's 1 of the reasons, probably, why we we accept less than optimal solutions because we give up. We don't. Wanna. We don't want to play with it, or try and figure out how to make it better. And even if somebody does know how, it's too hard to figure out. In many cases.

Scott Wharton: 17:05

I think it also, I think I knew this inherently at Logitech, and we had a lot of discussions about having an smb oriented product as opposed to an enterprise oriented product. I think that my experience now reinforcing, I've shared it with my former colleagues across the industry. I think the we all basically worked at large companies. So I think we're a little bit hidden and abstracted from all that complexity and even just cabling. And it. It's it's really hard. So I would say, I think part of what the industry needs is just another clean look at how do you grossly simplify everything? Not for an enterprise, because they can figure it out, but more for Smbs, who really struggle with this stuff, and and quite frankly, I think some of them will just put a laptop at the table, which was kind of thing we joked about. but if you think about it putting a laptop at the table. It's so easy. It just works.

Dave Michels: 17:53

Huh! I I wanna go back to the the meetup that you mentioned earlier. I was a big fan of that product and you you highlighted, you know, moving the audio off the table off the speaker phone, you know, up to the front of the room. that was kind of a technological breakthrough. Because, cameras and speakers which vibrate aren't normally compatible. Now, that's kind of become, you know, table stakes, as Dave Danto points out regularly, there's a lot of video bars in the market. Do do you think, what happened? There was that a technical breakthrough? Or is it more of a mental shift? What happened.

Scott Wharton: 18:36

I think it was a little combination of both, and then different ones depending on the timing. So I think the 1st ones we talked about was the mental breakthrough. People don't need a speaker phone. You can convince people not to use that. That was one I know we we had a bunch of patents on handling the vibration, especially with the camera at the time moving. I think the second, the other thing we did is we? you know, there was very simple and very expensive, and we able, we were able to basically take a mechanical Ptz and put it into meetup. I think that was a big innovation, and doing it without screwing up the audio. That was quite hard. I think one of the innovations with Meetup, too, is that we did not try to over complicate it by putting the compute inside the box. It was basically a I'll call it a dumb USB device, which was actually a selling point. I think there were some people who wanted to move early to a bar, and there were some people who tried it. We looked at it, I would say, even when I started in 2,015 there was a vision of moving to the bar. I think our view was, you know, the market wasn't ready like the compute, wasn't there? Nobody really wanted windows into a machine. So I I think part of one of the other innovations we did was a business model innovation, I remember. Do you remember we did the kits? We have these reference designs.

Dave Michels: 19:48

Yes.

Scott Wharton: 19:48

You would not believe the shit I took internally for building that people are like. This is so complicated, and you're meeting in the channel. And and David David Denter remembers at the time. I think Polly was reselling everything. And the problem with that is, you're taking a thousand dollar computer and marking it up to like 3, 4 k. So it was like a quasi business model, and I think it. It was complex, but it worked like it set the reference design for the entire industry. And then, I think, then, we we kept looking at our when is the market going to be good enough from an android point of view. and and a compute point of view to put it in there. And I think we we were a little late, and I'd say neat and poly were, you know, leapfrogged us. I think we were able to leapfrog them. But I think at the time we realized that the market was not ready, so it was like a series of things lined up a series of innovations. And then I would say, where the markets move to now is actually moving away from all these mechanical moving parts and just moving to all digital. Because when you're doing more software. I'd say the quality of a digital camera is largely worse than an optical one. But if you're moving the camera a lot, it doesn't matter, because then you get rid of that kind of tennis effect, you really want to be able to move the camera on a dime, and that's why I think the market is moving to all digital cameras.

David J. Danto: 21:05

And also with AI. Now you're actually able to create, you know whether you're doing it in the cloud or in the device you're able to give everybody their own box, whether you know it's a it's small or large, or however you want to call it, I mean, I've I've I've forgotten all of the various trade names for the same thing. But it's essentially making a better picture in a way that we're used to, because we've watched television all our lives.

Scott Wharton: 21:27

Absolutely I mean. One of my favorite features now is the rally bar huddle which I use in one of our smaller rooms, and the ability to pick everyone out using a digital zoom and just extract out each person. I I think that feature is just killer. I use it every day. It's in some ways I like it better than having the bigger room in sight, because you have 3, 4 people in a room. It just works so well, you don't need to do anything. It's the other thing I like about is you show up in the room, and there's no change in human behavior. It just works.

David J. Danto: 21:56

Okay. So you said, you're now not there anymore. You're kind of out of it and using it. So you're now using zoom. And you're now using Microsoft. What are your thoughts of those companies now that they're not partners of yours anymore?

Scott Wharton: 22:09

Well, I I think the market is kind of settled into a slower level of innovation. I I mean, I said, there's a couple of challenges. One is, there are 3 companies now. And I. I don't think that Microsoft really feels like they have huge competition anymore. And micro I would say, Microsoft is at its best when someone's breathing down their neck. and the reality is, I think, teams now has the largest market share by far, so I think.

Dave Michels: 22:34

You don't lose breathing down their neck is the Department of Justice. Morning.

Scott Wharton: 22:39

That's a different discussion. Yeah, although they seem to be very good at kind of skirting around that. But you know, I would say teams is one and kudos to Microsoft, for kind of you know, letting what they, you know. Zoom push them. and then they they innovated enough from where they were. And if you remember where teams was at the beginning of pandemic, I mean, I think you can only look at 2 video. I mean, it was awful right? So it's way better now. and I think Zoom was very innovative. And now it. you know there, there's like, I said, I think their stuff is very complex, too. So I think everybody's stuff is kind of complex. So that that is a challenge across the board. And I think the market when the market settles into a dynamic, when you, your complexity is the, you know, is the rule of the day. I think Microsoft win usually wins that.

Dave Michels: 23:28

Now you. You say that as a true as a true statesman, you know you're no longer a partner. You can say what's really on your mind here. So let's continue down this this free form conversation. David and I have been talking a lot about a new thing for Microsoft called Mdep, and I know you're familiar with it. It's Microsoft. Expand expansion into android Now, that's an area that you actually spearheaded at logic. You had a you had to learn, android. You had to bring all that in. You had to bring and figure out the processors and figure out the operating system. What was your reaction to Mdep? And you were at logic the time. What was your reaction to Mdep when you 1st heard about it?

Scott Wharton: 24:08

I mean, my 1st reaction was not positive. Partly because we had, like you said when I started at Logitech in this group. We actually had a total number of 0 non firmware engineers. And then when I left, 3 quarters of the team was software, so we built up an incredible investment around Microsoft Zoom and Google to make make it really work. Well. So you know, the idea of having to kind of scrap a lot of what we had done. you know not a not a positive thought. And then the other thing is so classic, you know, lowering the barriers to entry by commoditizing things, so throwing our stuff out. commoditizing it. I I think that's a classic playbook that not only Microsoft was doing, but also qualcomm on the chip side where they were moving up the stack. So it was definitely a difficult challenge. And then, I think, as I've learned, I think the part of the reason why Microsoft did. It was not specific to communications. It was more. you know, a lot of things with Microsoft is a bigger picture, so I think they were reacting more to Google and Google and Apple. So Google and Apple had their own OS, they had their own lockdown, you know, versions of an OS Google and Android. And I, I think Microsoft was reacting to that across the board. I think this is just something like, Hey, where else can we use this? And it was like communications. But I don't think I don't think there was any master plan that was thinking through. All right. How am I gonna screw over these companies? It was more like, Hey, let me just take something. That is a big corporate mandate to expand android. But I think it definitely has a big effect on the industry with Microsoft being the dominant player, that it kind of hurts the incumbent players who have invested all that energy, and it helps people who. you know, have not, that are looking to more, commoditize the commoditization players.

David J. Danto: 25:50

Well, it's interesting. I'd I'd love your take on this for a second again. Don't reveal anything that that you can, although you're not in the space anymore. There, as we are having this conversation. we still don't know how Microsoft is going to be treating legacy partners that don't go to Mdep. We've heard conversations to the extent that you know at at a certain point. You know, the the line in the sand is going to drop, and if you're not on it, you're not going to be certified. We've heard other people say that, you know. If if if you were, if you were certified. You're always certified, and we'll we'll grandfather the other versions in. And the reason we don't know is because it probably hasn't been decided yet. They're doing a lot of testing of the waters. But what do you think will happen if if a if a logic or an HP. Poly, or somebody else who's been very powerful, neat in in terms of creating these android devices. Don't, don't buy in. Do you think the how will the tug of war end.

Scott Wharton: 26:43

Yeah, so I I don't know the answer to that now being out of that. But but what my, what I suspect will happen is, even if they grandfather it in. Let's just say that happens. Practically speaking, I don't think that will work for the vendors that are grandfathered in, because once Microsoft starts pushing, or any big company says, All right, I have 2 versions. I have the grandfather version. Oh, and they have this new shiny object thing. and this is the one that we prefer. It doesn't matter. Like the the large customers are not sophisticated enough to know the difference like they're gonna hear they're gonna hear. And also messages play the game of telephone. When you go down to the sales team. They're not going to understand the subtlety of that. So I think there's always a danger when you have a new standard, and it is a new standard, right? And you say we like this new standard. I think it's very difficult to maintain the the old way of doing things. I think that's the biggest challenge is you. Ca, this requires some nuance, and it's in a world with big companies and big sales teams where nuance just gets lost like it's simplicity wins the day.

Dave Michels: 27:48

When when Mdev. Was 1st announced, I think it was at Enterprise connect 23 almost 2 years ago. It seemed very specific to teams meeting rooms. I've been thinking that it's going to be much bigger than that. You just made a reference to that. I did a post suggesting it might be a future smartphone standard android for version for smartphones. What do you think Microsoft's thinking about Mdev. Is it? I mean, do you think it's much bigger than meeting rooms?

Scott Wharton: 28:19

I do. I think the meeting room is the tail wagging the dog. I think Microsoft is competing with Google. and they want to have their own controlled version of Android, which I think is very rational on their part. To be able to do that rather than have a Balkanized version, or take Google's version? So yeah, I think I think it is bigger than that.

David J. Danto: 28:44

Who do you think are going to be the winners and the losers, the losers in the in in this, you know. Obviously, you have Jobra and Barco and Yealink as as being initially signed on to this. You know, you're getting the the the push back from some of the other established players like Logi and neat. How do you think of the new? Anything's going to turn out? Do you think it's going to be quick? Do you think it's going to be dragged out. But give us a sense of where you think it's going to be in the next 6 to 8 months.

Scott Wharton: 29:13

Well, I don't think anything was quickly in this industry, especially with regarding to operating systems, because you can't do a flash cut over. I mean, I would say that there's like a tactical winners and losers. And then there's the overall. The 1st one's clearer cut the less the other question less. So I think, companies who invest a lot of effort into building their own software that have to migrate it obviously will lose out a little bit. So those are the. Those are the existing comments. If you're a new player trying to get in. it helps you right. You don't need to. You don't need to invest 100 million dollars in software. Having said that. I think there are big barriers to entry now. where most big companies are kind of standardizing on one platform or the other, so I don't think they're going to easily switch. And and there's going to be a lot of time in the transition. And I think the companies, you know, I think companies like Logi and Poly and others will will transition over time, probably successfully, because they have great teams and products and big switching costs. Because it's not all. We're not talking about a bar anymore. We're talking about systems and software and management and global relationships. So I think all it's a bump in the road for them. I don't think it'll ultimately be catastrophic to any of them. But it but it's annoying, certainly annoying.

Dave Michels: 30:25

I I wanna pull thread there on that HP, poly thing I mean, H. Poly was, you know, a head to head competitor for Logi. You guys were fiercely head to head, competing with many of the same products and portfolio when you heard that HP. Was going to acquire. Poly. That must have been a concern for you. What were what was your thoughts back then?

Scott Wharton: 30:47

Well, let me just say I think there were different views within the company. My view was a little different than most. I was actually happy about the HP deal. So I think you know who who is not happy. I think people are not happy because they're like, Oh, there's a big company now with deep pockets. They will consolidate it. I've found in my experience that those promises and M. And A. Usually don't happen. I think you see that now, playing out where the promise of all the big companies and all the synergy don't work, because usually the big company loses interest in the smaller thing. I think that's kind of what's playing out now with HP. And Poly. I think the second reason why I was happy about it was that there were worse alternatives, like, I think. HP, buying Poly basically meant that Logi played on certain rules and HP. Played by the same rules, and I think we felt like Logitech would do well with those rules if the company had gone to like a a cloud provider like a Microsoft or Zoom, because, remember, at the time Google had their own hardware effectively. So I think there was a concern that oh, maybe the Cloud providers would get into the hardware business. We were concerned that that was an outcome. We were also concerned that maybe a Chinese competitor would jump in that would have different profit expectations. That was also a concern. So going to pop, going to an HP. Which had expectations of higher profit, margins and playing by the same enterprise rules. I mean my my own opinion. I'm not speaking for everyone there. I think we felt like this. This is good. We know how to play this game we'll probably do pretty well. Obviously there will be some benefits in the merger. But we thought overall it would. It would help logic. And I I think that's been largely true. Where Logi is over, the years has continued to gain share empirically. And Poly is continue to lose some share.

Dave Michels: 32:32

You know, I I was. I was thinking, Yeah, I I guess you were ahead of me on that. i i i've had the thought that HP, or that Logi might get out of video. And that was it was. It's based on a whole bunch of things, right? It's based on. Oh. competing with HP. Which, as you said, may not have been a big threat the departure of bracken, the departure of you the entry of Cisco into the devices ecosystem from Microsoft the shift to AI and other factors. When I say a shift of AI, I mean, now, logic's got to build new keyboards and stuff like that. It was an AI key. So I was thinking that that oh, and and no new products. We haven't. I mean, I you mentioned the meet up, too, but but not a whole lot of new products. So I was thinking we might be kind of at the end of of Logi's Logi's command and video. Now, Mr. Danteau and others feel I I might be wrong, and maybe I'm maybe I am wrong. So what are? What are your thoughts on that.

Scott Wharton: 33:42

Yeah, I think you're wrong. I think that 1st of all, the company has said publicly, it's the most profitable group. And money talks and profits. Talk. It's a sizable group now with leading market share. I think companies usually don't exit things where they're they're market leaders. And I mean, one of the things I'm proud of is I left behind an incredible team that's still there, that still is carrying on a lot of the roadmap and vision that we put in place. And I think they're still executing pretty well, and I'm sure some of it. You've seen some of it. You haven't. But I I'm pretty confident. I I mean, I still keep in touch with my team regularly, and I miss them a lot, and I think they're doing a great job.

David J. Danto: 34:23

Well, I I think it would be fair to say, from an external perspective, without pulling on too many threads, that they're they have not been as visible or as loud with bracken leaving and with you leaving. They. They've been a lot more close to the vest, and a lot more one message for consumers, and and and not a lot of briefings or other information. So so I don't I. That would be another reason for the perspective that we were a little bit worried about them.

Scott Wharton: 34:50

Yeah, I mean, I guess my wife would say, Brack and I are more loud, mouse, right? We know we're out there. We like the public eye. The the team that's there maybe likes it less so than we did, relatively speaking, but I think they're equally competent. So I'm not. I'm not worried there.

David J. Danto: 35:03

And there have been some really recently, some some really good hires and some people coming over from Poly in in that space. So it's going to be interesting to watch how all the competition in the space develops.

Scott Wharton: 35:14

Yeah, I mean, I think the other observation is that the markets kind of getting into a stasis now, which usually helps the incumbents. and I think it will be difficult for some of the smaller players to hang on, as some of there's more portfolio expansion and consolidation, maybe among vendors and customers, and you know as as much as I think Microsoft, as the dominant player in the space, wants to encourage new entrants. You know it's just getting harder and harder, and I think there are a lot of companies on the buyer side. They don't want to have 20 choices, and I think ultimately Microsoft tries to create more players, but they don't like it either, because it just creates more. you know, Qa work for them and people they need to support, so I suspect that you know you didn't ask me. But I think what will happen over time is, I think there'll be some continued market consolidation. Given the fact that the market is not growing that fast, it's it's probably going reverting back to a pre pandemic growth of. or maybe slower than that. You know. Slow growth, mature, relatively mature industry. Now.

David J. Danto: 36:15

Well, Dave, Dave and I have spoken about this quite a bit, and and certainly something I'd like to get your comments on, because 1. 1 of the biggest movers in the space right now is this idea that Cisco is producing endpoints that are natively Microsoft compatible. And and if you're talking about a large Enterprise customer that's got a Microsoft contract and a Cisco contract and a Logi contract. You know. I can't see Logi being anything other than the 3rd player in a 2 person dance. So that's probably one of the biggest market factors going on right now, for those big companies that, as you point out, are trying to consolidate vendors.

Scott Wharton: 36:51

So I I would say I had a different view at launch at when I was at Logitech. I probably still have a different view now, not based on being there, but just more based on observation. I think that if you look at the unit volume Logi versus Cisco, I think Logitech's like 10 times bigger. So Cisco has a lot of revenue, but it's they still have huge, expensive systems that they're selling to a handful of customers. I think. Generally speaking, my observation then, I think now is they're not winning a lot of new Logos. They're just maintaining their existing Logos. And then I think what Cisco is really good at is, they were. They were really good at very high, low volume, expensive complicated stuff. Logitech is generally good at the opposite high volume. reasonably priced stuff. So I think the market is moving into an area where logitech is better. and now has a brand, and I I don't think Cisco really makes that transition, I mean, yes, are they? Gonna was the announcement. Going to teams rooms? Would it? Would it give some customers the excuse to to not do anything. Yes. did I? Did I see, or do we see now, Cisco, winning a whole bunch of new customers? Not really so I don't think Cisco is well suited for this new world. It's just not. I'm not saying they're going to be gone. But, on the other hand. I gotta think, for Cisco is a 50 billion dollar company with this really tiny hardware business like, is it strategic for them? Do they ultimately? Are they excited about it. I I think the answer is ultimately, no. maybe that doesn't happen today. But I'm just looking at the way Cisco behaves. They usually, if something is low, slow growth, the low growth or no growth. They usually get out of it over time. So i i i don't think I don't. I don't I think, Cisco, they're an interesting case where let's see if they're in the business 3 to 5 years from now. I don't know why they would. It's just not interesting to them. Okay.

Dave Michels: 38:41

Okay, just a quick pause. Here. that's our enterprise. Video section Scott, did you have anything you wanted to cover before we move on to Alianzo.

Scott Wharton: 38:49

Yes, I've got all the answer.

Dave Michels: 38:51

Alright! There we go! That's great Scott! I I I wanna shift gears a little bit. We run out of time. I wanna shift to Alianzo for those of you that don't know Scott is a board member of Alianza Alianzo provides communication solutions to service providers kind of like your broad, soft days all over again. The company got a recent boost what do we call it? A an I told you so moment when Microsoft announced the end of sales for its meta switch products, the Meta switch acquisition. Do you think that that base of service providers is up for replacement from Alianza or another another service provider platform? Or do you think they're just going to go to Ott over the top partners.

Scott Wharton: 39:41

I I think it'll be a combination of both. But absolutely I I mean, 1st of all, I would say, I love Allianzer for a couple of reasons. One is, I love the team, and I love Brian, the CEO. They're just great people. and they just get up every morning and just quietly and consistently execute. I think the second thing that's really fun for me, and in many ways I spent a bunch of my early career broadsoft building up all these businesses selling the telcos, and they're completely reversing it. And I get to be a small part of that. So it's kind of fun to basically rip out everything that you you built in a way and kind of keeps me in in a world that I am not that much into. But I get to still play in because of Alianza. And I think what's happening is the allianza is just uniquely suited to the taking this business that most people are are saying, you know, used to be very strategic, but it's not boy telephony is not strategic. It's just an app now. and the fact that they can basically take advantage of a business that all their competitors are saying, you know, for the same reason, I said, video conferencing. It's boring, it's small, it's not growing. Why don't we shed that to someone else? All the answer, I think, is uniquely suited. Maybe the only one that can just run the table and go to all these telcos and say, Why are you running and maintaining this thing like? Just turn it over to us. You save money. we'll run it better and cheaper. So I think it's a, you know. Sometimes there are businesses like AI that are new and complex, and they grow, and they're exciting. And Allianzo in some ways is the opposite of that but great business, and that people are still going to be making telephone calls. Now to your second question, will some of it move to the over the top? Sure. But I think if you look at many technologies, it takes years and years and decades to kind of unwind, and I think Olian does both well positioned to kind of as I run the table on that, and then. you know, be the friendly player to the cloud where they can white label to them to these telcos, and then, if they do that which they are doing. I think there's a whole bunch of things that they can add to the portfolio because the end of the day. What I see is all the answers. They're not a voice provider. They're really a wholesale provider to Telcos. and if you think about a Telco as a great channel to Smb's. There's like no shortage of things that they could sell to them in the future. Obviously, voice. Is one of those key things, but there'll be other things.

David J. Danto: 41:58

so I know that we were talking about Microsoft teams and zoom before. And I know that they're using their own Cpass solution built into that can. Can you kind of comment on that? Instead of going with one of the bigger guys.

Scott Wharton: 42:10

I don't know if they've announced publicly what they use under the hood, but they they do have their own solution. I would say it's reasonably good. Now we run our board meetings on it, and I think it speaks to that. There are going to be a group of people who just are happy with teams and Zoom or Google meet. I think they speak to a group of people like you know what? I don't want to have a I don't want to make a dollar or nothing on teams. I want to have my own solution, and I bundle it in. I think they they have that. So I think that's kind of their position is we'll work with teams and zoom and integrate with them. I I think they also do a bunch of sip trunking to teams, which is, which is a pretty big business. Or they've got their own solution that they'll keep, you know, enhancing? I don't. Will it ever be as good as Zoom or Microsoft? Probably not. Will it be good enough? You know 80, 20 rule, probably.

Dave Michels: 43:46

Oh, okay.

Scott Wharton: 43:47

We, we can check it. If it is public, you can use it right. It might be.

Dave Michels: 43:52

Okay. Okay. Sorry.

Scott Wharton: 43:54

I just don't want to be the one who leaks it.

Dave Michels: 43:56

Yeah, no, I I hear you do. I? I don't want to be the one that leads it. And so, okay, are you okay? Are you good with? Are you good? With that, Dave?

David J. Danto: 44:06

Yeah, I I gotta figure out an edit in there somewhere. But I might delete the whole thing. So let we'll figure out based on the research.

Dave Michels: 44:11

Okay, let's see here. on that, on that video solution. Do you think the Allianza video solution, do you think? Do you think they'll build out a room solution, or is it just desktop and mobile devices.

Scott Wharton: 44:26

I mean, I think their their strategy is not to compete head to head with Zoom and Microsoft, but to have something that is good enough for Telcos to wrap around into a like a hosted cloud. PBX solution. So I I would never say never. But I think right now I don't. I don't see that that's part of their overall strategy. As far as I know, it.

David J. Danto: 44:47

Are. Do you know what the general feedback is from customers that are using the solution that they offer today? I mean, is it people pretty much satisfied with it.

Scott Wharton: 44:55

I. I don't have a lot of data, and I think but I think it falls into 2 camps. I think there are people who are happy with Zoom and Microsoft, etc. and want something that's more robust. And I think there's some people who are like Oh, it's included, cool and and as it's been getting better over time, I'm I'm guessing there are more people are going to be like, Oh, cool for free. I use my own brand. I get it as part of my telephony solution. Why not? I think that's the way Allianz is even using it internally, like they. Of course they have zoom, zoom, and teams calls, but I think for a lot of their calls, like the Allianz solution, is pretty good.

Dave Michels: 45:30

Okay, well, it's an interesting space. We have that 1st generation dominated by broadsoft. But Gen. Band and Meta switch they've all been acquired since then. now we see these new companies, Alianz intermedia uma and reach all going after that base do you? Do you see? the other 2 Gen. Band, and Cisco walking away from that space.

Scott Wharton: 46:00

Well, we talked about Cisco a little bit before, like I think, Cisco strategy. You look at what they're doing and what they say publicly, they're really going after they're becoming a security company and a data routing companies. I I just don't see how this telephony stuff is that interesting to them. You don't see them innovating there in Webex like you do in other places. So to me, it's just a question of timing, but that's my own personal opinion. I think the main difference between Gen. Band and Allianzo is that Gen. Band is more like an old, broad, soft kind of solution where you sell it on prem, whereas Allianzo is really pure cloud outsourced white label. If you look at it from that point of view. Okay, there are a couple of tiny players in this space, but there's really nobody quite like Allianza in that way. And I I think it's just so compelling that if you're a big telco, why would you continue to throw money and people and resources at running this thing when you could just outsource it and save money. Then there's the other, you know. Irony. The irony is that a lot of people who work in this space like us have been doing it for decades, some of the people running broadsoft and Gen. Band. They're retiring like. just like they used to do in the class 5 switches. So I think increasingly, it's going to be hard. How do you find a class 5, switch or broad, soft switch person in Louisiana or Indiana like you're not even gonna find the labor to run it so just outsource it.

Dave Michels: 47:19

Well, I think the next big stuff for Alianza is to expand internationally. So I'll, i'll, let you use this podcast right now to go ahead and announce that if you'd like.

Scott Wharton: 47:27

I won't announce it, but I I wouldn't say it's a bad idea.

Dave Michels: 47:30

All right. Well, I think that wraps up the time we got here, Scott, I can't thank you enough for taking some time with us. I I know you're about to embark on a European trip. I guess you're going to go to Italy. That. Should that should be interesting, I hear? There's good solar there, too.

Scott Wharton: 47:46

I. I hear that also, and I'm sneaking in. I'm going to the world's biggest Solar Conference next week, and I'm you know, it's 1 of those conferences like Enterprise connect where you don't get a minute to breathe. But I I wouldn't have it any other way. And thanks for the opportunity to go down Memory Lane with you guys is really fun.

David J. Danto: 48:00

We'll get you back on in another year or 2, and see how things are going there, and then find out what your next 8 year journey is going to be.

Scott Wharton: 48:06

Would love to anytime guys. Thank you. 370