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Switched in Thinking

Episode 12 – "How NETGEAR is Helping to Launch a New Era of Business"

Featuring: Richard Jonker

Welcome to the final episode in this series focused on the real-world networking challenges faced by businesses of today and the future.

This year has been an incredibly difficult one, but Episode 12 of the Switched On Thinking Podcast explores the many positives that we can take away from 2020.

Our demands on technology have dramatically increased in the last 12 months. That's only going to continue in 2021. Host Neil C. Hughes is joined once again by our first ever guest, Richard Jonker, vice president of SMB product line management at NETGEAR, to discuss the trends that Richard has observed and what makes him not only hopeful but quite excited about the next year ahead.

Dic 10, 2020

Transcription

Including:


  • The Covid-related challenges that businesses have faced this year.
  • How NETGEAR’s products are helping to propel us into a new era of technology and business.
  • 10 things that Richard thinks have improved since Covid.
  • What Richard is most excited about – and what NETGEAR is focusing on - in 2021.

    • Removing the Divide Between the Physical and the Digital World


    Richard recalls meeting with a Zoom co-founder who, after selling WebEx to Cisco, just wanted “to do something that makes customers happy”. Recently valued at $150 billion, Zoom became the most popular video solution because it's the easiest one to use. “That to me is one of the learnings of Covid,” says Richard. “If technology makes your life better, it's going to be more valuable.”

    In this podcast, Richard says that he expects more from Zoom’s beta features, such as 3d video conferencing and AR. He and Neil discuss how Snap Chat and Pokémon Go have helped to remove the barriers towards it. AR’s success is down to bandwidth, Richard explains, and NETGEAR is excited to contribute to resolving the issue of computing power on the edge.

    “It’s one of the things that people have been craving, this internet bandwidth,” Richard says. We’re all familiar with those household arguments because someone is trying to work while another is studying, and another is gaming. “That doesn't require a normal home network though; that requires a business grade network.”

    2021 and Beyond


    This year has shown how resilient people have been and how they've embraced technology to overcome challenges. “That will drive a lot of the stuff we'll do next year - it will be because of what we learned in a Darwinian way about the crisis of 2020,” Richard explains. In 2021, we need to “find different tools to collaborate that are not necessarily me talking to a camera”. “That could be augmented reality… or 3D”.

    Now, “we don't put up with dead spots,” Neil says. “You just expect that seamless wireless connectivity throughout the entire home… we want that ease of use [and] we want it to be affordable.” That's what NETGEAR is delivering through its products and services. “We basically need to upgrade every home in the world to be an office and make sure people have business grade networking, so they can access the internet safely… [and] protect their bandwidth,” says Richard.

    “You're not just one business one with one address,” Richard explains. “You're now spread over as many homes as your employees have [and] we need to weaponise our customers and make sure they can protect themselves against the horror that now comes from every corner of the internet.”

    5G is going to be an eye-opener because it's affordable and faster than most wired internet connections. “WiFi 6 is another trend where the WiFi standard gets upgraded to accommodate more devices, higher speeds. But it does require some upgrade of the wireless equipment in your home.” Richard explains that it’s “one of the biggest undertakings in the networking industry - to move all the management from the devices into the cloud.” And make it easy to use. “That's going to be our job in 2021.”

    A New Episode Every Two Weeks


    Twice a month, Switched On Thinking will deliver insightful analysis by exploring real-world networking challenges faced by businesses today and in the future.

    Every episode, we will discuss the key role that networking technology plays in driving business success and continuity, so you can spend more time on what matters – growing your business.