Last year ,Jabra talked about the work it was doing on the software side to bring more control, centralized management, and remote monitoring to its lineup of products. The goal was a set of solutions which would roll out over time as part of what they refer to as the Jabra+ Cloud Platform.
“We’re building a new, secure, scalable multi-tenant cloud solution. It’s built in Azure, on Azure IoT specifically,” said John Hand, senior manager of software product management at Jabra. “And as we said before, it’s an API first microservices architecture. So, everything here is API based. That’s what we call it a platform; we’re building our own products on top of that API platform as well as in the future enabling integrators and cloud partners to build on top of our API platform.”
The first touchpoint, Jabra+ for Admins, is now available via an early adopter program, offering meeting room and video device management. It promises a “seamless experience from start to finish” according to Jabra, allowing users to easier manage their communication devices. It’s also something IT administrators can use, giving them visibility and control over settings, firmware updates, real-time status, and insights from a single platform.
What is there today looks useful, but more so for end users and IT staff at the customer level who’ve had to juggle numerous pieces of software to manage devices. “We’ve got pieces of software now that have been used for managing our devices, and this is an evolution beyond them into something that is more of a holistic platform across the whole portfolio rather than this piece of software is for your device and your headset his piece of software, etc.,” said Josh Blalock, chief video evangelist at Jabra. “There is a near-term term delivery point that is more pertinent to the enterprise than the longer-term focus that an MSP or other partner may have.”
However, as Hand noted in a demo video last December, an MSP could leverage its single sign on capability to become a part of multiple organizations at once. Service providers probably wouldn’t want to manage meeting spaces per se but could handle things like firmware updates as part of a value-add.
MSPs should keep an eye on what Jabra is doing, because the next phase of Jabra+, called Jabra+ for Partners, is where the story for MSPs and MSSPs gets more interesting. “We have four touchpoints, the first of which is Jabra+ for Admins, where we have our device management touchpoint built on our cloud platform,” said Hand. “The second will be our Jabra+ for Partners, where we have a Cloud API platform being built on top of our cloud platform. It’s a great place for our partners to interact and connect to and integrate our data. We’ll also be building out our end user touchpoints as well a new mobile app, a new desktop app.”
Jabra+ for Partners opens a lot of new possibilities for MSPs and integrators, as it allows them to tie into their API and iterate on their platform. When asked about what kinds of services a partner could build or foresee partners doing Josh Blalock, Chief Video Evangelist at Jabra, replied, “We already see a lot of a lot of different [partners] offering different kinds of device management as a service solutions. What that usually entails [is] a great number of things that are somewhat dependent on their own capabilities that they’re building on top of the extensibility of the platforms, they’re integrating with them from the OEM side, from us, from others. “
Blalock expanded on that to illustrate that their upcoming API in Jabra+ for Partners allows for MPSs to integrate with their existing tools, allowing partners to get creative in their offerings. For example, a partner could offer various tiers of service, from monitoring to proactive troubleshooting, and engagement on a ticket level. Others may choose to offer additional options for their customers as they leverage other features of the API to offer more management of things like settings and firmware updates.
The integration of AI, particularly with Copilot in Microsoft 365, could allow partners to bring some very interesting solutions to their customers. Jabra has taken an aggressive approach to AI adoption, working closely with Microsoft to bring intelligent features like voice detection for individual speakers, and soon face-detection even if they don’t actively speak in a meeting.
“On the PanaCast 50 side we are bringing new AI capabilities that are very tightly integrated to Microsoft’s intelligent story through Microsoft teams, to Microsoft Copilot, some of those copilot capabilities, those intelligent meeting recaps, those meeting transcripts or AI fueled tasks,” said Blalock. “They’re a big part of their AI copilot story, and we are one of the first to come to market with these capabilities built right into the bar. With our competitors, these are solutions where they’ve had to release new devices that do these things. We’re saying, no, these are free upgrades to the existing device.”
It’s unknown when Jabra+ for Partners will be available, but MSPs working with Jabra conference systems or other products should give Jabra+ for Admins a look over the coming months. As Jabra expands their cloud platform, it could very well be an interesting opportunity to bring new value and services to your customers.
