Hands-on experience led the University of Southern California to choose DTEN as their enterprise-wide solution

Vetting new video collaboration hardware involves complex calculus: performance, reputation, durability, connectivity, user experience and cost are all key factors for consideration. 

Now imagine the process being accelerated from a year-long initiative to virtually overnight. USC was exactly in this scenario: their strategic digital transformation plan needed to be quickly advanced in response to COVID-19.

In a recent interview, Joe Way, Director, Learning Environment at USC, explained how DTEN came to be selected in their thorough, yet fast-track, vetting process.

“Our classrooms and even a lot of our conference rooms did not yet have professional technologies in them for video conferencing, white boarding or any of those types of interactive collaboration tools,” notes Joe. 

Faced with the need to make rapid decisions, Joe and his team followed a pragmatic approach: inventorying user needs, evaluating product capabilities, and conducting hands-on trials. “We didn’t have any brand in mind – we were looking for solutions able to solve problems for our users,” he shares. 

Their trial of DTEN technology proved to be pivotal in the selection process. Joe continues, “We requested some DTENs for campus as trials. We plugged the first one in our office and it just worked. And we knew almost immediately that these DTEN units would be going everywhere, because it solved the problem.” 

USC went on to purchase DTEN D7s, both 55 inch and 75 inch units, plus multiple Zoom for Home - DTEN MEs, the personal 27 inch video collaboration device. 

“DTEN became the enterprise-wide answer,” Way concludes. “DTEN delivered an all-in-one, simple, user-friendly solution. The ability to bring unified communications solutions - into our classrooms, our conference rooms, our group study spaces - allowed us to create interactive environments.” 

“As it turns out, the combination of Zoom and DTEN provided a perfect solution.”