CEO Craig Malloy openly tells press LifeSize will be one billion USD in sales in the next few years-- and the company expects it will grow each year at double the market rate of growth.
That market rate, says Malloy, is 15% -20% growth per year, with the global video conferencing market now at $2.5 billion). If the video conferencing market will hit $5 billion in a few years, then 20% of that is indeed within Malloy’s grasp.
Logitech bought LifeSize for $405 million in 2009 and increased sales for their last fiscal year to $134 million, up from $79 million. That must make LifeSize’s new owner, the Swiss peripherals company Logitech, feel pretty smart…especially after their own Q1 sales dropped in Europe and after its highly-touted new Revue set-top boxes and Google TV product performed…well, let’s just say they weren’t LifeSize at all.
Today LifeSize has around 20,000 individual clients in 80 countries with 35% of the company's sales in Europe.
How will Malloy grow that business? Most industry folks recognize LifeSize is all about price points and bringing videoconferencing to the tiers of fear: the small and medium business that Tier 1 vendors have a hard time selling without talking down to them.
Lifesize's range runs from software costing $150 to $100,000 for 3-screen video conferencing room systems. Around 50% of LifeSize’s products are in the $5000 to $8000 range.
Malloy targets smaller companies and told press in his customers that “around a third are completely new to video."
But Malloy has more on his mind than appealing to small and medium-sized businesses. He thinks LifeSize could increase its sales with new products.
In one press interview, he mentioned LifeSize will offer new products to exploit the rise of cloud services. Casually he mentioned video streaming, recording and archiving will also increasingly use conference hardware and software in the next three years. When you remember that Logitech’s expertise is in peripherals, suddenly you see a new range of Logitech products that could extend videoconferencing abilities—as well upping that rate of growth Malloy is on about.
No wonder Malloy is kissing up to Microsoft (Logitech biggest competitor, by the way) and Skype. For example, with the Skype deal, LifeSize and Logitech get access to Skype's 600 million subscribers, some of whom may want to switch technology.
LifeSize was voted European CEO magazine’s Telepresence Provider of the Year 2010 by CEOs from across Europe. LifeSize’s HD solutions-- such as the LGExecutive powered by LifeSize and LifeSize Bridge — helped secure the award. The LGExecutive was distributed at the World Economic Forum in Davos at the end of January. (Hey, doesn’t that seem like “stuffing the ballot box?”)
