Jabra is a Danish brand specializing in audio equipment, and more recently videoconference systems. The company engineers, manufactures, and markets wireless, true wireless, and corded devices for consumers and business customers. Abraham Mammen, Director – VC, Eastern Europe, Russia, CIS, Middle East & Africa at Jabra talks to The Integrator about Jabra’s videoconferencing solutions at GITEX Technology Week 2021.

Remote work and video collaboration have been new norms of the market. What Jabra has to offer for the rising remote work needs?

Jabra can build on 150 years experience of its mother company GN who addresses medical, professional and consumer segments with innovative audio solutions. With the Jabra PanaCast series we are now offering intelligent video conferencing solutions – including the PanaCast 50 videobar with integrated audio for conference rooms and the personal camera PanaCast 20, which is best accompanied by a professional and certified Jabra headset, such as the Evolve2 75. What companies all over the world need are technical solutions that enable their hybrid workforce to work and collaborate from anywhere. Jabra supports them with crystal clear voice and natural high-definition video.

What is special about Jabra’s video collaboration tools?

We released PanaCast 50 and PanaCast 20 – AI-enabled video collaboration devices which are set out to become the dominant players in the market. What makes them stand out is the unique experience they deliver. Immersive virtual and hybrid meetings and natural dynamic collaboration made possible by their rich intelligent feature set.

What makes you think they are going to attain dominant stature?

Jabra presents intelligent video with its videoconferencing devices that are unique in the video collaboration arena.

In 2019 GN acquired Altia Systems, a Cupertino start-up who created a “surround” videoconferencing device and software called PanaCast designed to replicate the panoramic, immersive experience of human vision. This acquisition helped Jabra to further develop this innovative video technology and combine it with our expertise in audio.

Jabra PanaCast cameras stitch visual inputs from three cameras, covering 180 degrees, and bring them to a single frame intelligently. As they are AI-enabled, edge processing devices, they can handle pinpoint and shift focus to a speaker, capture whiteboards, screen-in-screen feature, count the number of members in a conference room, and calculate the time they spend on a meeting. All these actions seamlessly happen on a single screen.

With a Jabra product, be it a PanaCast or a professional headset, users also get a future-proof solution, because Jabra constantly works on improving their devices, adding new features and fine-tuning current ones.

What are the advantages of these professional and certified headsets?

These headsets are specifically engineered for the modern needs of hybrid and remote workers. Online meetings, video conferences and working from a variety of different locations, including noisy surroundings, are part of every da work life. Unlike consumer-grade headsets, professional headsets can handle surround noise extremely well – thanks to advanced microphone technology meeting participants at the other end of the line won’t hear anything but your voice. On top, the passive and active noise cancellation of Jabra headsets enables employees to work concentrated and focused in almost any situation.  In addition they are approved by leading video collaboration applications developers. Jabra devices can be attached to any of the video collaboration applications including Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Skype, and Webex as they are application-independent.

Which are the industry verticals that Jabra wants to focus on?

Finance, Education, and Medical are the industries in the prime focus of Jabra’s enterprise business. Thanks to the digitization there are huge opportunities in these markets – such as remote medical consultations, which are becoming more popular as well as remote and hybrid teaching. Partnerships with other big brands and strategic alliances will help us to achieve our goals. We are optimistic to make an impact in every sector we involve as we invested all possible resources in innovation and integration of technology.