“The growth rate for the first quarter failed to meet our expectations due to a general economic slowdown on several of our core markets, especially in the United States,” explains Vice President Jan McNair, who is in charge of GN Netcom’s Office headset business.

McNair has also noticed that, especially for the last quarter, companies have been holding back on major investments to some extent. That does not worry him too much, however. In a long-term approach, the attractive market for office headsets still offers good potential and, with its global market share of around 30%, GN Netcom is well positioned to capitalize on that potential. Only 7% of the world’s some 440 million office workers use a headset.

New Promising Products in the Pipeline
“We will be launching a number of very exciting products on the Office headset market this quarter and beyond. For example, we will have a new enhanced version of our flagship GN9300 wireless office headset series offering improved sound, range and greater comfort. We will also be sending the GN M5390 onto the market: this new office headset can connect with two communication devices such as a PC and a cell phone at the same time. It features a completely new Bluetooth standard that provides users with as much as 70 meters of wireless range and better audio,” says McNair.

In 2007, GN Netcom became the world’s first headset manufacturer to have a number of office headset models certified for the Microsoft^® Office Communicator communications platform, which was launched in October 2007. GN Netcom generated good sales of headsets for Microsoft^® Office Communicator in the first quarter, and McNair is looking forward to seeing an even higher Microsoft^® Office Communicator take-up rate among businesses. With a few hundreds of thousands of Microsoft^® dealers worldwide, this business relationship with Microsoft^® holds a huge potential for GN Netcom.

“Our headsets for Microsoft^® Office Communicator are already selling really well, and we look forward to Microsoft closing some of the attractive deals they’ve been lining up. These will be so-called ‘lighthouse deals,’ meaning deals intended to show other businesses the huge potential waiting to be discovered in Microsoft^® Office Communicator. We are working closely with Microsoft^® on supplying headsets for these deals,” says McNair.

Promising Agreements
In addition to its business partnership with Microsoft^®, GN Netcom has closed a number of deals with other major clients.  For example, one of the world’s largest distributors of technology products has appointed GN Netcom as its preferred headset supplier.

“This agreement means that every time this distribution partner sells or promotes some of the largest brands in office telephones, GN Netcom’s wireless office headset will be promoted as an accessory to those phones,” says McNair.

To learn more about GN Netcom’s office products, go to www.jabra.com.