from around the industry
Avaya CEO: Running to Win
Avaya CEO: Running to Win Jim Chirico has laid out his course for 2018 and beyond, as he discusses in this Q&A. Jim Chirico has laid out his course for 2018 and beyond, as he discusses in this Q&A. Last…
Polycom’s Mary McDowell: Leading an Endpoint Empire
[This interview first appeared on NoJitter on September 28, 2017] In the summer of 2016, Polycom was on track to be acquired by Mitel. The shareholders of both companies had agreed, but private equity firm Siris Capital unexpectedly intervened with a better…
Twilio’s Jeff Lawson: Building an API Empire
[This interview originally appeared on NoJitter.com on November 14, 2016.] As CEO and co-founder of Twilio, Jeff Lawson has helped propel the idea of communications platform as a service (or, as he likes to call it, “cloud communications platform”) into…
MS Teams With Andrei Soroker (podcast)
When it comes to messaging apps, Andrei is a pro. I tracked him down to get his take on MS Teams. Andrei Soroker is the cofounder and CEO of Sameroom, an interoperability platform for real-time communication services, like Skype, Slack,…
Discussing THINGS with Chris Matthieu
I’ve known Chris for some time (pre-stache), and he seems to have a knack for good ideas. I caught up with him to find out more about his new role at Citrix and to understand how a cyborg from the future…
8×8 CEO Has a Tiger by the Tail
Cloud communications is a market whose time has come. This UCaaS leader doesn’t intend to let it get away from him.
Cisco’s Rowan Trollope Makes ‘Spark’ Fly
Cisco’s Collaboration head shares his perspective on bringing “delightful, magical” experiences to workplace collaboration.
Real-Time With Avaya CEO Kevin Kennedy
In the latest of my Q&A series with industry executives, Avaya’s chief shares on everything from customer satisfaction to fan engagement, hosted enterprise services, development platforms, and collaboration.
Interacting with Interactive’s Don Brown
[This interview first appeared on NoJitter on July 16, 2015] Dr. Don Brown, CEO of Interactive Intelligence, is a serial entrepreneur with a history of success. His first software company caught the attention of EDS four years after its launch,…
ShoreTel 2.0: Transforming for a Hybrid Future
In this Q&A, CEO Don Joos shares his vision for remaking ShoreTel as a company that can play on the premises, in the cloud, or at a cross-section of the two.
Thinking of Phones
Steve Kokinos, CEO of UCaaS innovator Thinking Phone Networks, gives us the lowdown on where the company is today and where it’s headed.
BackBeat GO2 Headsets
At the recent UCSummit conference I got a pair of BackBeat Go 2 Wireless Earbuds from Plantronics. I found them impressive – music first yet acceptable for telephony bluetooth headsets. They are stereo for music or spatial audio, or monaural with…
Conversation with gUnify
Crisantos Hajibrahim is the founder and CEO of gUnify which brings enterprise UC to Google Apps. Actually, gUnify is a “middleware” company. It is a pure cloud play, and enables service providers to integrate with Google Apps. There is no…
Decoding WebRTC with Erik Lagerway
When I have questions about codecs and IETF standards, I turn to Erik Lagerway. I caught him in the midst of packing for his trip to the upcoming IETF 88 meeting. Erik was a co-founder of Xten Networks (now a part…
Rich McBee Going on Four Years at Mitel
A wide-ranging discussion includes cloud and virtualization strategies, go-to-market, economic trends, and possible further acquisitions.
A Remote Connection with OJ Winge
An interiew with OJ Winge
The Man Behind the Cloud
An interview with the CEO of BroadSoft
Joe Burton of Plantronics on UC
Originally Published on NoJitter on November 2, 2011. Plantronics has produced headsets for a long time. The company has been a staple of call centers for decades. But over the past few years, headsets broke into the mainstream. Headsets are…
The Cloud Maker at Cisco
Originally published on NoJitter on August 28, 2012. Eric Schoch is the General Manager of Cisco’s Hosted Collaboration Business Unit (HCS), which represents Cisco’s UC&C cloud strategy. While most premises vendors have jumped directly into offering cloud services, Cisco’s strategy…
An Arrow of Avaya
[Originally published on NoJitter.Com on June 17, 2012] Recently, I had the opportunity to meet with David Chavez at Avaya’s Colorado Executive Briefing Center. David is the CTO in the World Wide Sales Organization. He was promoted into this position…