SM: When you mapped out the acquisitions, were companies like PlaceWare and WebEx on your radar? BH: We considered it. SM: Was it too expensive? BH: No, we did buy one actually. We bought MeetYou. It did not resonate with our company. It did not fit our go to market, although we were technically in
SM: What was your response to the customer demands? We created a suite of solutions. We bought Accord Networks which we felt was the best multipoint conferencing network. Then we had the endpoints in the multipoint. From within we built an IT application called GMS, which allowed us to run all of the equipment. We
SM: You do serve the mid market, extensively. BH: We do. Below the strategic’s we have global accounts. Our solution is better than being somewhere in person, and that is a nice mantra. You want people to be productive when they are not in the same place. That is fundamentally our market. You have to
SM: What were some of the major milestones in building the company from $37 Million to $682 Million a year? BH: Founding the company, what Brian and Jeff did was important. They had a great creative design. That is not the exact design we introduced, but close. You would know if you saw the original
SM: Sounds like an early version of WebEx! BH: It was a little different since WebEx is sharing files on a PC and this was displaying it in a conference room. WebEx was also a lot more successful than we were with that device. The audio conferencing grew and the company was profitable. SM: You
SM: What happened after Ampex? BH: I wanted to take more of a risk so I went to a small startup called Conner Peripherals. There was an article in Fortune about us being the fastest to the fortune 500. You have to look at them in quarters because a year was just too fast. I
SM: Let’s start the conversation with your story? Where did you grow up, where do you come from? BH: I grew up in New Rochelle New York, which is right outside of New York City. I went to grammar school there and then went off to the University of Massachusetts, Amherst for my BA degree.