Reading the CES 2026 Tea Leaves
As CES 2026 approaches, the real themes are already emerging from the pre-show noise. With just about a week to go before CES 2026 officially begins, some clear themes are already emerging via the steady stream of analyst and media…
The State of Videoconferencing at the End of 2025: Thirty Years In, Still Not Done
Thirty years is a long time. Let’s ask Mr. Peabody to set the Wayback Machine to 1995. If you wanted to make a video call back then, you weren’t casually tapping a glass-covered rectangle in your hand. You were likely…
Center-of-Table Cameras: Back to the Future of Meeting Equity
COT cameras are the latest not-so-new thing. It stands for “center of table,” not the thing that hurts your back on a camping trip. Center-of-table (COT) cameras move the primary room video capture point to where the conversation actually happens:…
MDEP at Ignite 2025 – The Line in the Sand Is Now Crystal Clear
At Enterprise Connect this past March, I presented an update on the state of Microsoft’s Device Ecosystem Platform – better known as MDEP. A lot has changed since then, and this week’s Microsoft Ignite 2025 has now made one thing…
Videoconferencing Finally Establishes Its Shot
As part of my long history in our industry, I’ve spent decades joining video meetings with people I’d never met in facilities I’d never seen. More times than I can count, I’d connect to a call and find myself staring…
Q-SYS- The Full Stack Image Gets Sharper
Many AV companies treat press releases like confetti – a new camera here, a widget there, maybe a firmware update tossed in – hoping the industry will connect the dots. Q-SYS is playing a longer game. At the recent Activate…
How AudioCodes Live Supercharges Your Cisco Environment
WebexOne just ended in San Diego. TalkingPointz has a lot of Cisco-focused coverage from the event (posted and coming), but there were other vendors there, too. Specifically, we met with AudioCodes – it was their first time exhibiting at WebexOne….
Cisco’s WebexOne 2025: First Impressions
Conferences have always been about more than announcements. They are about bumping into peers in the hallway, asking the tough questions that do not fit neatly into a press release, and gauging how a company’s direction feels in the moment….
A Neat Trick: How Neat Keeps Expanding Its Video Horizons
We had the chance to attend Neat’s analyst meeting last week, and it lived up to its name – neat in every sense of the word. From the moment Neat emerged from stealth at Zoomtopia 2019 with its very first…
Stronger, Faster, Measurable Outcomes
Stronger, faster, and measurable outcomes were the theme of #VerintEngage25. I always enjoy going to Verint events because even though they are hosted by and for Verint, they are general CX events. That’s because every contact center company partners with…
Unmasking the Myth: The Great Work Culture Hoax
For the past few years, we have been living through seismic shifts in the world of work. Remote and hybrid became the default during the pandemic, only for a parade of CEOs to later insist that “company culture” demanded a…
Thoughts on Genesys and Five9 News
On July 31, both Genesys and Five9 made interesting announcements. Here is my take: San Francisco – July 31, 2025 — Genesys, a global cloud leader in AI-Powered Experience Orchestration, today announced $1.5 billion in new investment commitments from Salesforce and ServiceNow,…
First or Stickiest: Remember The Diamond Rio?
When I meet with clients to talk shop – usually somewhere between an echoey conference room and a hotel ballroom with terrible coffee – I often bring up the Diamond Rio. Remember that? No? Exactly my point. The Diamond Rio…
InfoComm 2025 PickHitz – Crestron 3Cs
There’s no shortage of impressive AV tech out there – and Crestron continues to deliver its share of it. But what makes their latest move stand out isn’t just a new product or feature. It’s a renewed focus on the…
InfoComm 2025 Pick Hitz – Cisco Room Vision PTZ
Pan, tilt, zoom, track, frame – the Room Vision PTZ does it all, and it does it quietly. With local AI doing the thinking and a near-silent optical motor doing the moving, Cisco’s new camera brings cinematic motion to everyday…
InfoComm 2025 Pick Hitz – Barco Click Share Hub
It looks like just a button. But under the hood, it’s quietly managing a torrent of 4K video, audio, control signals, and bi-directional UC data – wirelessly. With Barco’s new ClickShare Hub system, that little button becomes the front end…
InfoComm 2025 PickHitz – Huddly C1
Most videobars these days look like they’re trying to blend in with the furniture – all soft fabrics, rounded corners, and muted tones. That’s fine if your meeting room doubles as a yoga studio, but some spaces demand a bit…
InfoComm 2025 PickHitz – Nureva HDX
There’s something inherently daunting about designing audio for a large space. You start with good intentions, then spiral into DSP blocks, manual mic zoning, ceiling tiles full of echo, and a rack that looks like it belongs at NORAD. And…
A Closer Look At The Sennheiser Team Connect Bar S
Next up on the TalkingPointz Tech Bench is the Sennheiser Team Connect Bar S. The Sennheiser Team Connect Bar S is a very interesting device. It has some unusual features that I had to think about for a while before…
InfoComm 2025: AV’s Slow Boil Into IT
At many of my recent in-person presentations, I begin with the often-repeated (questionable) tale that frogs will jump out of a pot of boiling water if you try to put them in, but if you put them in cold water…