DEMYSTIFYING HUDDLE SPACE SOLUTIONS
AN ANALYSIS OF FIVE KEY COLLABORATION PLATFORMS FOR HUDDLE SPACES LET’S HUDDLE UP
Organizations around the world continue to realize the importance of modernizing the workplace and improving the way they communicate and connect. Employees have come to expect their corporate communication tools resemble applications in their personal life, such as Skype, Facetime, Facebook Messenger, etc. As this shift continues to unfold at a high speed, organizations are prioritizing this challenge and working hard to deploy collaboration solutions that fit their use case best.
The Huddle Space has become an important part of this equation. While most organizations will have a variety of high-end collaboration and presentation spaces, the Huddle Space represents a scalable collaboration solution that is, in most cases, deployed in higher numbers and distributed throughout most departments to ensure all teams have access to these productive spaces.
As employees check in and out of their o ces on a day-to-day basis, the need for properly equipped huddle spaces is growing rapidly. Company strategy needs to include huddle spaces to ensure employees are equipped with what they need to add audio, video, and content collaboration to meeting spaces. As this demand increases, so does the number of available solutions on the market.
In this brief guide, Alex Bisset, our VP of Platform Strategy, has taken the time to assemble a simple analysis of some key Huddle Space solutions available on the market today. HB will help you to demystify the Huddle Space o erings so you can make the best choice for your organization.
Demystifying Huddle Space Solutions Cisco continues to lead the market by o ering the most comprehensive collaboration solutions portfolio available today. These products can range from voice and video endpoints to solutions for content sharing and full platform o erings. The Cisco Webex Room Kit, Cisco Webex Board, and Cisco Webex Share o er some of the most comprehensive and unified user experiences available for today’s huddle space environment.
UNIQUE ATTRIBUTES CLOUD CONNECTIVITY The Cisco Webex Room Kit, Cisco Webex Board, Cisco o ers seamless cloud integration via a and Cisco Webex Share all o er a seamless user subscription to Webex Teams. This gives experience via the Webex Cloud platform. The companies the ability to a ordably scale their Webex Room Kit Mini uniquely combines video collaboration platforms and meet growing user telepresence capabilities with USB host demand for collaboration in the Huddle Space, connectivity. This provides users in huddle all without having to bear the burden and spaces a superior audio and video experience. expense of adding on-premise infrastructure. Webex Board and Share complete Cisco’s all-in-one Huddle Space solutions design.
EASE OF DEPLOYMENT EASE OF ADMINISTRATION Cisco’s cloud connectivity o ers administrators Cisco’s Webex Teams allows administrators to a simple and scalable deployment model. rapidly deploy and manage users, endpoints, and Through the Webex Teams Cloud service, services across their global organization with companies can deploy huddle spaces more little-to-no IT training required. Webex Control rapidly than ever before. Administrators can Hub o ers a centralized dashboard for analytics utilize Cisco’s centralized Webex Control Hub to and reporting, and it integrates with Microsoft simplify the deployment experience. O ce and Google G Suite.
WORKFLOW & USER EXPERIENCE SERVICE Cisco o ers a seamless user experience by Cisco’s endpoints now benefit from being easily providing a unified user interface across all managed via the cloud. This can reduce devices and spaces. Cisco’s Touch 10 user organizational dependency on dedicated AV interface provides a One Button to Push resources. Cisco’s Collaboration Help engine workflow experience for your huddle rooms. provides real-time systems status that allows IT Cisco’s design simplicity and clean aesthetics leaders to keep an eye on the health of their help improve adoption for users. collaboration platform. Webex Control Hub also provides administrator-level endpoint visibility.
Demystifying Huddle Space Solutions Polycom-Plantronics continues to lead the collaboration market by o ering innovative solutions that align with any enterprise-grade platform. Polycom focuses on a consistent user experience, bundled with high performance endpoints and interoperability. Polycom recently expanded their video platform experience by adding improved integration with enterprise solutions from Microsoft, Cisco, Zoom, and Blue Jeans.
UNIQUE ATTRIBUTES CLOUD CONNECTIVITY Working together with Microsoft, Polycom RealConnect for O ce 365 is a Polycom designed Trio to maximize the power of Skype cloud-based service that integrates legacy for Business and O ce 365 Cloud PBX. Polycom video endpoints with Microsoft Teams or Skype Trio conference phones are the only Skype for for Business. RealConnect for Microsoft Teams Business certified conference phones on the allows Huddle Space users to easily participate in market. Even though Microsoft may be your calls involving dedicated immersive telepresence primary platform, Polycom Trio can uniquely adapt rooms, desktop softphones, and mobile to any enterprise collaboration environment. applications from various UCC platforms.
EASE OF DEPLOYMENT EASE OF ADMINISTRATION Polycom Trio is easy to deploy using Zero Polycom Trio conference phones support Touch Provisioning and Power over Ethernet. hybrid registration which allows administrators Trio leverages open APIs and open video the ability to register with multiple platforms protocols to ensure interoperability with all simultaneously. Polycom’s RealPresence major standards-based solutions and call control Resource Manager o ers simple video estate platforms. Polycom Trio allows administrators the management and endpoint provisioning for ability to register Trio to multiple collaboration Huddle Space deployments. platforms simultaneously.
WORKFLOW & USER EXPERIENCE SERVICE With Polycom Trio, users can easily join meetings Polycom Trio’s configuration templates let through calendar invitations with Microsoft 365 you e ortlessly customize the interface to and Google Calendar. Polycom One Touch Dial accommodate your organization’s usability further simplifies collaboration interoperability requirements. Polycom Advanced Services with Skype for Business, Zoom, Blue Jeans, helps to ensure an organization that their GoToMeeting, WebEx, Amazon Chime, Fuze, and collaboration platform and IT network are Polycom Easy Schedule. Trio has truly simplified prepared to meet evolving huddle space voice, video, and content sharing workflows. requirements for voice and video.
Demystifying Huddle Space Solutions Zoom is an enterprise-grade collaboration platform that supports real-time conferencing for its users, and it allows users to transform any area into an easy-to-use collaboration environment. Zoom Rooms let you build the room you need with the hardware that you want on top of Zoom’s powerful and modern cloud-based platform. This conferencing solution is scalable, and it helps integrate traditional video conferencing with the cloud platform.
UNIQUE ATTRIBUTES CLOUD CONNECTIVITY Zoom Rooms power a variety of collaboration- Zoom’s platform was built from the ground up as a enabled environments from simple huddle cloud-based meeting solution. Zoom enables spaces to more advanced, integrated spaces. internal and external conferencing, all-hands Zoom’s extensible cloud platform is constantly meetings, trainings, and mobile collaboration evolving. Zoom recently added two unique through one cohesive platform. Zoom’s cloud platform extensions: doorside scheduling and service supports end-to-end encryption for all digital signage. This enables companies to meetings, roll-based user security, and user display visual content and live broadcasts password protection. This results in the deployment throughout their organizations. of a safe and reliable cloud connected solution.
EASE OF DEPLOYMENT EASE OF ADMINISTRATION Zoom Room deployments are focused on Zoom has centralized all administrative delivering easy-to-use technology for Huddle functionality to a single cloud-based Space environments. Zoom’s deployment management portal. Zoom Dashboard flexibility allows IT to deploy systems with allows administrators to view centralized company-familiar Windows- and Mac-powered information ranging from user adoption to hosts combined with standard USB-AV live meeting room experience analytics. Zoom peripherals. Organizations can now rapidly scale Rooms are deployed using this dashboard their Huddle Space environments without having so administrators can easily monitor and manage to invest in a deployment of proprietary hardware. their entire video-enabled environment.
WORKFLOW & USER EXPERIENCE SERVICE Zoom Rooms feature a highly intuitive user Zoom’s online Help Center with live support o ers interface deployed on a touch-sensitive iPad or an enterprise-level service to Zoom’s cloud Crestron-powered tablet. With Zoom Rooms, conferencing platform. The Help Center includes users can press a single button to start their a comprehensive search engine for usability, meetings. Schedule a meeting using your own workflow, subscription management, messaging, calendar system, and then Zoom Rooms, along and third-party interoperability issues. Users can with its integration with the AV/IT environment, access online help in real-time while administrators does the rest of the work. can monitor analytics for their subscriptions, call quality, and systems health.
Demystifying Huddle Space Solutions For more than a decade, Lifesize has been at the forefront of video collaboration. Lifesize combines easy-to-use conference room cameras and HD phones with cloud-based conferencing to connect to anyone, anywhere. The Lifesize platform is often deployed end-to-end, allowing its users access to manageable software for collaboration and high-quality telepresence-based equipment for room-based applications.
UNIQUE ATTRIBUTES CLOUD CONNECTIVITY Lifesize Share o ers wireless content sharing for Lifesize Cloud combined with the Icon HD o ers huddle spaces. Lifesize Dash transforms your a highly reliable, user-oriented Huddle Space huddle spaces into video-connected collaboration solution. Lifesize Cloud interoperates with any hotspots. Today’s modern Lifesize Icon is standards-based video endpoint, making it easy designed with industry-first 4K video conferencing to connect with legacy video conferencing capabilities and o ers full-motion 4K content systems. Select Cisco and Polycom devices can sharing. The Lifesize cloud platform unifies this also register directly to the Lifesize Cloud suite of products into one seamless environment. service, alongside Lifesize Icon HD.
EASE OF DEPLOYMENT EASE OF ADMINISTRATION Lifesize is a highly scalable platform that allows The Lifesize Admin Console gives you the you to deploy huddle spaces at the pace and rate control to easily administer and manage your that is most a ordable for you. As one of the Lifesize account and equipment. You can access industry’s most reliable connectors to the cloud, the customizable dashboard to track important Lifesize delivers a high degree of interoperability, usage data and manage Icon endpoints. Lifesize allowing it to co-exist with current deployments of Admin Console also allows you to modify your Cisco, Polycom, and other standards-based video directory and reallocate unused resources. conferencing systems. Lifesize endpoints are easy to pair using the Lifesize Cloud Dashboard.
WORKFLOW & USER EXPERIENCE SERVICE Huddle spaces enabled with Icon and Phone Lifesize Icon systems include Lifesize Device HD are powered with a customizable user Software Subscription (DSS). This suite of services interface. Lifesize Icon further enhances the includes help desk support, software updates, user experience by automatically framing hardware replacement, and pairing to the Lifesize participants when the call starts. Lifesize Cloud service. Lifesize Extreme Support includes Cloud supports auto call escalation, allowing 24/7/365 help desk services and a dedicated one-on-one calls to seamlessly transition to a Customer Obsession team member. group meeting with the simple touch of a button.
Demystifying Huddle Space Solutions StarLeaf is a cloud-based video conferencing enabled platform that allows participants to easily collaborate with HD video, desktop, and mobile applications. StarLeaf o ers a highly interoperable solution that is compatible with Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams. StarLeaf Cloud also supports any standards-based system, which includes Zoom, Cisco, Lifesize, and Polycom.
UNIQUE ATTRIBUTES CLOUD CONNECTIVITY StarLeaf’s Huddle Space solutions are simple and StarLeaf’s Cloud platform supports multiway intuitive while delivering a premium video calling with real-time access to built-in messaging experience. StarLeaf Cloud is deployed solely and wireless content sharing options. Endpoint with technology owned and operated by StarLeaf, pairing via StarLeaf’s subscription service adds a making it incredibly reliable and secure. StarLeaf layer of security with firewall traversal and also recently introduced Teamline, a purpose-built gatekeeper functionality. platform specifically for native interoperability with Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams.
EASE OF DEPLOYMENT EASE OF ADMINISTRATION StarLeaf’s room subscription service removes StarLeaf’s Cloud portal allows administrators the the need for video network infrastructure and opportunity to manage all endpoints, meetings, delivers total interoperability with other video and users from a single, unified dashboard conference systems. StarLeaf Cloud has a console. StarLeaf Maestro gives administrators management portal that gives you complete everything they need to centrally manage and control over your StarLeaf video conferencing control their Teamline Huddle Space systems. environment. This includes endpoint provisioning, Maestro allows you to monitor room utilization, system software updates, call control, and video improve meeting room e ciency, and provide security management. remote administration on a global basis.
WORKFLOW & USER EXPERIENCE SERVICE StarLeaf Cloud meetings can be joined from any StarLeaf’s Cloud service removes the need for location, including meeting rooms, boardrooms, dedicated video network infrastructure and and especially huddle spaces. StarLeaf o ers a delivers a global meetings solution that is fully consistent application experience for users interoperable with legacy video conferencing via desktop, laptop, mobile device, or simply systems. It is also deployed with a management from within a browser. StarLeaf endpoints are console, which gives you complete control over deployed with an intuitive user interface that your video communications environment. requires no specific training, so users can simply walk into a room and join a meeting with the press of a single button.
Demystifying Huddle Space Solutions A message from Alex:
I just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to explore this Huddle Space solution guide, and I hope it was of value. As you continue your research, feel free to reach out to our Collaboration Team here at HB. We work with customers every day from mid-size organizations to Fortune 100 Enterprises to help develop a strategy and roadmap for their collaboration platform and environments. We have built a highly specialized collaboration practice here at HB and work hard to ensure we are providing the best guidance and support as our customers work through the challenges of strategy, solution design, installation, adoption, and support.
For more information on huddle spaces and our Collaboration Team, please contact us at [email protected] —Alex Bisset, VP Platform Strategy
HB View support suite is designed to ensure all of your huddle spaces are deployed with ease and managed with confidence. This service removes the barriers of needing dedicated infrastructure by providing your organization with remote monitoring for your endpoints, enterprise systems management, and analytic statistics reporting.
Demystifying Huddle Space Solutions