Plantronics introduces its first Bluetooth Neckband Headset with Earbuds: Voyager 6200 UC

Published: 23 January 2018

Company now offers the industry’s widest range of stereo Bluetooth devices with active noise cancellation 

Johannesburg, South Africa — 23 January 2018 – Plantronics (NYSE: PLT), an audio pioneer and communications technology leader, introduced today the Voyager 6200 UC, the company’s latest addition to its flagship Voyager family of enterprise headsets. The new neckband wearing style features Bluetooth wireless connectivity, a boomless design with comfort-fit earbuds, active noise cancellation (ANC), and integration with major UC applications.  With the addition of Voyager 6200 UC to its line-up, Plantronics is now offering professionals the widest range of stereo Bluetooth devices with ANC of any vendor in market.

“Accommodating individual employee work styles is becoming increasingly important, especially when it comes to retaining millennial and Gen Y talent,” said Alaa Saayed, ICT Principal Analyst, Frost & Sullivan. “By offering a wide choice of headsets and letting people choose their preference, IT and line of business managers can create a solid win-win scenario; optimizing the UC and collaboration experience overall for the company, and engendering goodwill with highly valuable personnel.” 

“We continue to hear that noise and distraction are the number one pain-points for office professionals,” said Gavin Sear, Global Product Marketing at Plantronics. “The best way to get people to embrace technology that can help them communicate and collaborate better is by offering choices that speak to their individual work style as well as their lifestyle, whether they’re in or out of the office. The Voyager 6200 UC delivers this versatility with business-grade audio to a new group of users that find existing headset and headphone offerings too limiting.”  The Voyager 6200 UC offers a unique combination of features and benefits unlike any other neckband headset with earbuds in market, including:

  • Four omni-directional microphones that listen to sound from all directions and deliver a professional-grade audio experience on both sides of the call, without a microphone boom, via Plantronics “clear talk technology”
  • Active and passive noise cancellation, ensuring focus when surrounded by noise and distractions both in and out of the office
  • Wide band audio delivering clear PC calls and premium hi-fi stereo, which is especially important when listening to music
  • Versatile design, allowing users to listen to calls or media in stereo or simply drop either earbud for single ear use and to be more aware of their surroundings; the neckband discreetly vibrates to indicate an incoming call or alert
  • Certification for Microsoft Skype for Business; compatibility with Cisco Jabber, Microsoft Teams and numerous software apps
  • The ability to pair up to eight devices and connect to two simultaneously for easy audio management
  • Class 1 Bluetooth, providing a wireless range up to 30 meters/98 feet Dynamic mute alert, ensuring optimal productivity by sensing and alerting users via an in-ear whisper if they talk while muted
  • Up to 9 hours of talk time, and up to 16 hours of listening time, to communicate and collaborate all day
  • Compatibility with Plantronics Manager Pro™, an additional purchase, that enables IT teams to gain insight into every compatible Plantronics headset being used company-wide

Voyager 6200 UC and Plantronics Manager Pro

Voyager 6200 UC is fully supported by Plantronics Manager Pro, which allows IT managers to monitor, manage and maintain devices company-wide, including usage and acoustic analysis. This includes the ability to configure the user experience, manage firmware deployments, and harvest predictive analytics to detect compatibility issues before they become critical. Plantronics Manager Pro is available as a subscription service, sold separately from the Voyager family. 

Voyager 6200 UC will be coming to South Africa soon and will be available in black and sand colours through Plantronics authorized South African partners. More information about features offered within the Voyager Family, and Plantronics Manager Pro are available at www.plantronics.com/za/en   

About Plantronics

Plantronics is an audio pioneer and a global leader in the communications industry. We create intelligent and adaptive solutions that support our customers’ most important needs: experiencing and facilitating simple and clear communications while enjoying distraction-free environments. Our solutions are used worldwide by consumers and businesses alike, and are an optimal choice for open office environments. From Unified Communications and customer service ecosystems, to data analytics and Bluetooth headsets, Plantronics delivers high-quality communications solutions that our customers count on today, while relentlessly innovating on behalf of their future. For more information visit plantronics.com. The Bluetooth trademark is owned by Bluetooth SIG, Inc. and any use of the mark by Plantronics, Inc. is under license. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. More information is available at www.plantronics.com/za/en 

A new company emerges to disrupt the software product market

Published: 30 September 2016

SovTech, a software development company and start-up incubator based in Johannesburg, has recently stepped into the software as a service industry and is looking to shake things up. Having focussed predominantly on custom software development in the past, the company has picked up on several shortfalls in the South African business software industry and is excited to tackle these shortfalls and disrupt the conventional industry players with their premium product range.

With an experienced team and valuable customer feedback, SovTech entered the fray by developing an initial set of three turnkey products that are aimed at small to medium sized businesses. The products that are currently available to clients are a CRM product, a document management system, and a marketing automation product. With five more products in advanced stages of development, the software company is looking to offer their product suite as a set of solutions for any business needs. “SovTech has been looking at the software-as-a-service market for a while. We have had a few companies approach us in the past for various projects and could not help them as they did not have the budget for a full custom software solution.

SaaS allows us to offer our clients a great product that can be delivered quickly and at a great price point”, says the person spear-heading the SovTech Products business unit, Brendan Stott. While the company was hesitant to shift some focus away from the core business offering, Gerald Neves, CEO of SovTech, had this to say on the bold move: “The final decision to move into the SaaS industry was essentially made for us when we saw the lack of providers in the industry and the demand that we received from our current clients. We are excited to be able to build on the relationships we have with our current customers and offer more value for money to them and any new customers.” One of the first products to be in clients’ hands is SovTech’s Sales & CRM Cloud.

This cloud-based CRM that has been developed by SovTech to cater for small to medium enterprises that are looking at improving the quality of the data that they receive from clients, as well as to decrease the amount of time spent on generating invoices and creating reminders to follow up on client interactions. The Sales & CRM Cloud product features tools that allow sales managers to gain insight into the activities of the sales people, allowing managers to take proactive steps to improve the sales process in the company and identifying choke points and congestion in the sales pipeline- thereby increasing the overall sales of the business.

Sales people are more productive with the quote and invoice generator that optimises those processes to ensure that sales people can speak to more prospects than ever before. The products that have been released are already being used by multiple companies and users and SovTech is receiving great feedback to improve the products.

SovTech has always placed a strong emphasis on listening to customers and ensuring that a software solution develops with the customer’s changing needs. This culture will ensure that further upgrades and developments of the platform will serve the greater client base and allow the team at SovTech to offer the best service and products to their clients.