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