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June 20, 2013

With its 50th Anniversary Behind it, Plantronics Still Making Big Waves in the UC Market

By Carrie Schmelkin, Director of Content Marketing, Content Boost

Many companies have an inspiring story behind their genesis. Some began as the brainchild of a quiet developer who honed and honed a solution in his garage until it took off. Others stumbled their way into their offerings, after trying to invent something and discovering another solution along the path.



But for Plantronics (News - Alert), a leading provider of unified communications headsets, the 53-year-old company has a different kind of bragging right. Namely the fact that astronaut Neil Armstrong exclaimed on July 20, 1969, from the moon, “This is one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind”—an iconic quote that  was made over a Plantronics headset.  The company also made history by “sending” the first UC headset to outer space, when astronaut Wally Schirra chose to use the MS50 for the Mercury mission, adapting the lightweight model to fit inside his helmet.

“Our company has always been a leader in communications headset products,” Jim Stevenson, Director of Public Sector Sales, told TMCnet at the NY Tech Summit this morning.

“We had unified communications before people knew what UC was,” he added.

Since 1961, Plantronics has been a fierce competitor in the space, taking its value proposition from a garage in the 60s—when airline pilots Courtney Graham and Keith Larkin invented an alternative to the conventional headsets of commercial aviation—to the modern day world in which the company has emerged as a bleeding-edge innovator focused on perfecting the art of communication.

Most recently, the company demonstrated its commitment to industry-leading technology by providing developer kits, which included headset APIs and wearables with industry-first sensor technology, to qualified software developers who participated in the inaugural AT&T (News - Alert) Women in Tech Hackathon June 2-4. Plantronics was also selected by the Riot Games last month as the official headset partner for Season 3 of the League of Legends World Championship Series. As a result, the company’s esports headsets will be used exclusively throughout the series, including the World Championship tournament.

This past week, the company has been making splashes in Verona, N.Y., at NY Tech Summit, a business-to-business exhibition and educational technology conference hosted by CXtec and Teracai.

“Being at NY Tech Summit is a great opportunity to meet with some of our customers and support CXtec, a great channel partner,” Stevenson said. “We are demoing some exciting UC products at the event.”

There is perhaps no better time to be in the UC market with spending by U.S. businesses on UC technologies expected to grow by 10 percent a year for the next five years, according to new statistics from InfoTrack. Moreover, over 78 percent of IT decision-makers who were recently surveyed by Dimension Data (News - Alert) revealed that they had a current strategic plan and budget to implement "select components" of unified communications and collaboration (UCC). Additionally, 43 percent said they have a budget for most components of UCC, while 42 percent of decision-makers indicated they have a budget to proceed with investment in "all or most aspects" of UCC.

“UC is the fastest growing segment in terms of communication,” Stevenson said, noting that the government sector in particular stands to benefit a great deal from UC solutions. “In terms of the public sector, UC is particularly applicable with government, which is typically technologically behind. UC is an opportunity for government to take a quantum leap forward while at the same time saving money.”

Plantronics has found a sweet spot in the public sector which includes government, healthcare and education. It hangs its hat on its ability to help these verticals diversify their workforces and create the environment that the workers of tomorrow are looking for.

Those differentiating qualities have resulted in the company becoming the leading provider of UC solutions for the FAA, NASA and government agencies. As Stevenson puts it, “however you need to hook up, we can do it.”

To learn more about Plantronics and its recent news, click here




Edited by Rich Steeves
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