Whitlock is an award-winning reseller and service provider partner for major video collaboration and unified communications manufacturers. At Enterprise Connect, the company is showing how customers can utilize their services and partnerships in order to build a robust and comprehensive communications system that can be scaled out to global use, or utilized in single offices. This year, the demonstration of that system is going to focus on Microsoft’s Surface Hub.
“It’s really a representation of our entire portfolio,” says Kirk Muffley, Director of Enterprise Sales of Whitlock. “We’re a Microsoft gold partner but also a Surface Hub launch partner. We’ve been working with Microsoft for quite a while now with that portfolio. It seems to be of interest to our large, multi-national enterprise clientele. They seem to be still struggling with the Microsoft versus Cisco decision – ultimately I think they’ll have both in terms of solutions.”
The Surface Hub is intended for huddle spaces and meeting rooms, and offers a unique range of capabilities for a single system. You can walk up and join a Skype for Business meeting with a single tap, and share content effortlessly, so that you spend your time connecting to people rather than technology. And since you can easily send meeting notes and content, you can communicate outcomes and action points. By integrating the Surface Hub with other devices, Whitlock hopes to show attendees at Enterprise Connect that the Surface Hub doesn’t need to be isolated in order to be properly utilized.
“Microsoft Surface Hub is something we’re really excited about,” says Muffley. “In terms of the functionality, I think it’s kind of a new concept to most of our customers in that it’s an all-inclusive device that ultimately can be deployed globally and combine with cloud services and other AV. I think that’s the challenge a lot of our clients have – its interoperability with existing video systems. How do you take the Surface Hub and create a larger room experience? So we’re demonstrating the Surface Hub, our cloud technologies and Polycom devices.”
Polycom and Microsoft have a strategic partnership that is showcased in Polycom’s RealPresence Trio, a smart collaboration hub that transforms the three-point conference phone into a voice, video and content sharing system. The Trio, along with a range of Polycom products, is natively interoperable with Skype for business. An entire platform becomes available for customers when marrying these technologies, and Whitlock is using its booth at Enterprise Connect to show how the Trio and Surface Hub can work together.
“The other aspect is our strong partnership with Crestron and then looking at the cloud through enterprise management solutions that they offer with Fusion,” says Cheryl Cox, Director of Marketing & Communications at Whitlock. “We’re bringing the Surface Hub because we love it, but also because it gives us the ability to tell a few different stories at the same time. So we definitely want to engage with customers there that have interest in learning more about the full enterprise suite, automation, asset management, and the benefits there.”
You can learn more about the Surface Hub and Whitlock’s full range of solutions by visiting booth 1743 at Enterprise Connect in Orlando.
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