Natalie Harris-Briggs June 27, 2023

NewApp as founded in 1992 and is based in San Jose, California in the United States. The company employs approximately 11,000 people globally with around 1000 of those based at its state-of-the-art headquarters in the Santana Row section of San Jose - right at the heart of Silicon Valley. The company moved to these premises as part of an ongoing transformation, accelerated by the pandemic, and its future of work strategy.

NetApp operates a flexible hybrid work model and its office amenities are designed to cultivate inclusion, increase business agility while prioritizing employee health, safety and wellness. The company has a large number of meeting and conference rooms, of varying size, which are used for internal staff and customer meetings, with both in person and virtual attendees joining. Technology is an important tool to help to deliver a first-class collaboration experience and the internal NetApp Multimedia Group began to look at upgrading their large format displays as people began to return to the office, post-pandemic.

Bart Saunders, Multimedia Specialist at NetApp and Eric Benson, Director of Engineering at Creation Networks Inc. the AV integrator on the project, organized a ‘shoot-out’ to trial a variety of displays on site. One of the key requirements was for full interactivity and ‘touch’ technology, something that was lacking from the existing displays. “Team-based work and collaboration are very important to us at NetApp,” says Bart. “As such, we wanted more interactivity in our meeting rooms so our chosen displays would need touch screens to help with that, as well as BYOD compatibility so employees could use their personal devices. After weighing up the options we found that the Avocor G Series offered the best touch experience; it was really responsive and had a nice finish on the glass. In fact, the overall device is well designed and looks great. BYOD worked perfectly with staff being able to smoothly join meetings with their own laptops, tablets and mobile devices. We’ve had no issues, reliability has been superb, and in truth, our experience has been so positive we’ve settled on Avocor as our ‘go-to’ standard display for all meeting and conference rooms.”

Following the trial, the new Avocor G Series interactive displays are now installed in many of the conference rooms and smaller huddle spaces at NetApp. “The devices offer excellent support for digital whiteboarding, an activity that is proving increasingly popular amongst our teams since we made the switch to Avocor.” adds Bart.

The G series displays are installed at NetApp in their full range of 65”, 75”, and 85” sizes. These 4K enabled units feature a sleek, bezel-less edge-to-edge design with bonded, crystal clear InGlass™ technology to deliver ultra-fast performance across its 20 individual touch points and 4 passive stylus options. The result is a pixel-perfect, interactive user experience for participants in the room and meeting equity for those who are joining remotely.

To complement the Avocor displays, NetApp integrated Logitech's video collaboration solutions into its conference rooms and huddle spaces. The Logitech Rally Bar, Rally Bar Mini, and Rally Bar Huddle were strategically deployed to deliver superior audio and video quality, ensuring optimal meeting experiences for both in-person and remote participants. These all-in-one video bars leverage advanced features such as AI-driven noise cancellation, automatic framing, and camera control to create immersive and inclusive meeting environments.

The synergy between Avocor's interactive displays and Logitech's video collaboration solutions has transformed NetApp's conference rooms into highly effective and engaging spaces. Employees and customers alike have praised the improved video quality, audio clarity, and overall meeting experience. The ability to seamlessly share content, collaborate on interactive whiteboards, and engage with remote participants has significantly enhanced productivity and teamwork.

"We were thrilled to partner with both Avocor and Creation Networks Inc. to provide NetApp's worldwide offices with state-of-the-art video conferencing solutions," said Sudeep Trivedi, Head of Video Collaboration Alliances and Go-to-Market at Logitech. "By integrating Logitech's AI-powered video conferencing technology with Avocor's interactive displays, we were able to meet NetApp's specific collaboration needs with modular solutions, which affords NetApp with the flexibility to upgrade and replace individual components as their needs change."

"The combination of Avocor displays and Logitech video collaboration solutions has redefined our meeting spaces," said Bart Saunders, Multimedia Specialist at NetApp. "We've witnessed a remarkable increase in employee satisfaction and collaboration since implementing this technology."

As would be expected from a forward-thinking company such as NetApp, there is interest in one of the most talked about recent trends in display technology, the ultra-wide 21:9 format currently capturing headlines across the AV media.

“I’m really interested in the new wide format display Avocor has just launched and the potential it has for displaying and breaking up content in new ways,” concludes Bart, “I’m really looking forward to seeing how this market segment develops.”

If your organization is ready to bring intelligent AV solutions and LED video wall technology to your new building, Creation Networks is here to help. We design, install and program state-of-the-art AV systems in businesses across California and nationwide. Contact Us Today