Today I took a longer stroll through the trade show, but first it was a lecture, a talk and a keynote to kick things off.
First off was a lecture about endpoints. Of course, since I'm in video conferencing, I assumed "endpoint" meant codec. Oops, it was about desk phones. Anyway since I manage a place with five actuall, real life desk phones on copper lines, I thought I would stay. I really appreciated Micheal Frendo's comments, but took it with a grain of salt since Polycom sells desk phones. One thing I refuse to do is call something dead. I don't believe they are dead, especially since I have them.
After that was an end user talk which was very interesting to listen to. Of course, the end users were enterprises and their problems are entirely different than mine. They seemed to be looking for one solution (or provider) but have difficulties. Team chat apps came up and right behind it was their security. Apps may have encryption but the problem lies with what the users do with the content they download to their devices. One security breach is a security breach.
Next up was Jens Megger's keynote from Cisco. He talked about their new codec and the spark board. One humorous thing he said was commenting on how immersive a point to point call between two Spark Boards were. I only found it funny since I don't personally consider the experience anywhere near immersive. He used a slide titled "Experiences matter", which I thought was interesting since I've used the phrase "The Experience Matters" for at least 5-7 years now.
Then it was back to the show. One thing I typically do is ask vendors how long their product has been available. Several times today, the answer was "as of today". That's cool.
I spent quite a bit of time in Zoom's booth and it seems like of all the players in the soft codec world, they are making the biggest strides, biggest improvements and most innovations. I applaud them for that. Some vendors have put out a product and said "here you go" and that's about it. Not Zoom. This is why they are at the top of my list of favorite soft codecs.