UC will triple our addressable market in two to three years

What is new that you have got for India?



This year's first two launches in India are Jabra Go 6470, which is an

office-centric solution offering triple connectivity. It comes with a touch

screen base station that allows for calls to be switched between, volume

adjusted and numbers redialled. Each unit can handle a combination of landline,

cellphone and VoIP calls, with the Synaptics-sourced display used to flick

between them. The other one is Jabra Pro, stick based headset. We have a strong

product roadmap for the Indian market.

How has 2009 been for Jabra?



It is inevitable to talk about the overall industry which declined by about

20%; in India we registered a 30% growth, which shows that certain countries

were not effected by the recession. China is another market where we grew. In

India, we are focusing on different verticals. Large corporates, telecom

operators and contact centers in India offer big business opportunities. A new

market that is coming up is of unified communications. UC will triple our

addressable market in two to three years. 2010 will be a breakthrough year for

UC, and 2011 will see mass deployments across the globe. Our partners, including

Microsoft, Cisco, IBM, Avaya and Siemens are all working hard on the development

and integration of these solutions.

What is the size of your retail presence in India and how do you plan to

strengthen it further?



We will not be able to comment on the market size. However, we are well

positioned in the market. In India, we have partnered with Innova and with them

we are exploring growth potentials in this market. In APAC, China and India are

crucial markets for us. We have plans to invest further in India. To improve our

in-country reach, this year we will be expanding our channel network, besides

opening up two offices in Bengaluru, and Delhi.

What innovations are you looking towards on the design side?



Our prime focus always is on simplicity, usability and economic viability.

We have brought some of the breakthrough technologies in the market. The biggest

challenge with any technology is how to make it simple. For example, in case of

a multi-connectivity environment, things can be so complicated that is why the

concept of a touchscreen was introduced. Also, Jabra Go enables PC suite update.

Each time you update your infrastructure, you can update your headset as well.

Such facilities are becoming a part the UC infrastructure.

Bluetooth is many times faced with interoperability issues. How do you

handle this?



Before any product is brought to the market, its interoperability is well

tested. We maintain relationships with almost all big vendors. We are always

working on newer certifications, at present we have about 130 of them.

Interoperability is on the forefront of our product developers' minds.

Heena Jhingan



heenaj@cybermedia.co.in