The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast Targus Booth Interview at Infocomm 2019

Episode Date: June 12, 2019

Targus Booth Interview at Infocomm 2019 Booth 4887

Hi folks, this is Foss here from thechrisfossshow.com, thechrisfossshow.com. Hey, we're coming here with another great podcast. We certainly appreciate you guys tuning in. This week, as you know from our podcast from yesterday, we are doing a lot of interviews at InfoComm 2019. There's a lot of exciting companies at InfoComm. I kind of like to think of it as a mini CES show. And as you know, we cover CES all the different years.

We have Robert Shapiro on the podcast, the CEO mini CES show. And as you know, we cover CES all the different years. We have Robert Shapiro on the podcast, the CEO of CES. And yeah, this is pretty awesome. And we've got a really cool company that's with us today, Targus. Now you may have heard of Targus. They're a leader in the universal docking solutions. They bring a revolutionary quad four docking station to the display industry that they're launching at infocom 2019 and if you're into docks this is going to blow your mind uh and it debuts the first time at infocom with targets to showcase of its new dock 570 usz that seamlessly delivers 4k to 4x10 displays we're talking about that with andrew corkle, the Vice President in Global

Marketing for Targus. And I should mention, Targus has a lot of other products. We'll talk about that too as well. So welcome to the show, Andrew. How are you doing? Thanks. I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on, Chris. I'm here at Infocomm in Florida. It's a beautiful sunny day today. That's awesome sauce. And well, you're in Florida, so you can't beat it there. I mean, I'm surprised you guys didn't even show up to the show. I'd sneak off to Disneyland or something. We're close by everything here, Disneyland, SeaWorld.

It's a great place to be, but Infocom is the reason we're here. And Infocom is going to be a big show. It is just almost an alternate CES. It is just amazing how many companies are here and how big this show is. Definitely. So you guys are launching this. I mean, you guys, well, first let's cap off because we want people to know that you guys are more than just a dock company. I mean, we do want to showcase this dock, but you guys make bags, backpacks, laptop

messenger bags. You guys make a crazy assortment. I kind of pre-profiled you on the pre-show that we did the other day, what's going to happen in FOMO. So you guys do a lot of that, but if you want, let's dive right into the dock. Yeah, sure. So, Targus, we're launching at this show our newest docking station, which is a quad-video 4K docking station.

So that gives you extended displays on four 4K monitors. So the beauty of this dock is it's really built for the desktop. So you can imagine power users, power IT users that need more than just two monitors for a docking station. This docking station will do four 4K monitors, a P60. And so all you do is plug in your laptop to the dock, and you will have four extended displays. The great thing is it is USB-C as well,

and it delivers 100 watts of power. So you don't have to worry about charging your laptop. It will charge your laptop while it's plugged into the docking station. It's a really great solution, and you can imagine how beyond you know, beyond IT, we also get a lot of like financial traders. We get a lot of video experts, a lot of graphics guys that want to have four monitors, but they need that 4K display and they need something that can, you know, just plug into the laptop and work really well for it. So this is the perfect

solution for that. And it's a low cost solution. This solution is just $399. Holy crap. So it's really a bargain to drive four extended displays. And plus you guys are doing that 60 frames per second, which is, you know, when you're doing 4K, you've got to be doing 60 frames per second. Like for me, uploading to YouTube, that's just the standard right now.

And usually when I'm looking at cameras and other things, I've got to be able to record at 60 frames per second, and I've got to be able to edit at 60 frames per second. And that's really important. And that's a lot of processing power to shoot that out to four different things. We do a lot of docs here at the Chris Voss Show. At the Chris Voss Show, we use Dock specifically on my PC computers. A lot of the people think these are just for Macs

because Mac did that thing years ago where they kind of developed this whole market by putting just a USB-C port in their laptops and nothing else. And so people are like, holy crap, how am I going to get all the other stuff in here I need to use? Yeah, and I think it's important to understand. So this docking station, it is universal. So it works with PC and Mac. So no matter what you plug into it, it'll work.

It even will work on USB 3. So not only USB-C, but it comes with an adapter, so you can just plug that straight into a USB 3 port, and it'll function off of a legacy computer where you're still using USB 3.0 yeah that was the biggest challenge I had when I first got docs from all the people who covered the review

I've got an older computer that's our main thing and we're too lazy to change it and so we had to buy some extra cards to put in the PCI thing so we could use USB-C but now we're upgrading computers and laptops that have the USB-C port. But being able to flip that makes a difference.

Because some people, they're kind of like us. They're like, well, I want the newest technology. And the nice thing about these docks is they have different ports that run really fast too as well. Like one of the things I like is the dock. Like I mentioned, our main computer that we like is really old. And so the USB ports on it are like, I think USB, I don't know what they are. They're old. 3.0.

I think they're 3.0. And so a lot of the docks we're seeing now, they're much faster. They're just better. Even the gigabyte Ethernet ports are better. I think the cards we have for the gigabyte Ethernet are pretty old. And so what we found is these docks actually work better on our older computers by plugging them in, and then we plug everything into the dock, and we're actually getting better response time, better processing time, better performance overall by using the dock.

And it's actually improved our older computers, which is kind of funny. Yeah, and I think you're going to see that more and more. And the main reason Targus has been doing docking stations is really to give you more productivity at the desktop. And so that's why we launched a lot of dual video docking stations, because most enterprise customers are already using two monitors on the desktop, so you can get a lot more work done on two monitors. But we've had so many requests for three monitors and four monitors, we decided to go ahead and jump straight into four. So we have this 4K docking station, and we also have a 2K docking station, which is an HD docking station which can also drive for extended displays and both those docks

are on display here at InfoComm today and the reason why we're at InfoComm because you might say well a docking station is not really you know a display kind of advertising type of device which you see most around here at Infocom. But we're actually looking at this from the desktop level. You're actually turning your desktop now almost into a display wall when you've got four 4K monitors and you can extend that now. So we're using that also in our conference rooms at work. So we have four 4K monitors in the conference room.

They're large monitors. And we monitors in the conference room they're large monitors and we plug in the laptop and now we're doing our presentation you know across those four monitors and even at the trade show at our trade show booth we have four 85 inch 4k televisions that are part of our display and we drive them all through this one docking station so i think it's it becomes where you look at it from a marketing perspective or from you know even from an industry or trade show perspective it becomes a low-cost solution to be able to drive these monitors just right off of a laptop and so it's really incredible to see really great things that look like a monitor wall

but i didn't pay between five and ten thousand for it. I just paid for the laptop and a $400 dock. And what booth are you guys at there at Infocom? So people that are at the show, because we're promoting this during the show. What booth are you guys at there? Yeah, we're at booth 4887. So we're right in the middle of the hall. And you'll see us because we've got the Targus Tower. It's a large tower that stands 21 feet tall, and it's got four 4K monitors up on top of the tower. And so if you're walking across the skywalk, it's where it's super easy to see it because you can see us right through the windows there, or if you get out on the floor, you'll see the tower there.

So booth 4887. That's awesome. And with the dock, they can get set up within minutes. That's one-fourth the cost of comparable digital signage solutions. And just plug and play and run

4Ks. That's really nice. You don't have to sit there and do much programming and try and get everything to go. Being able to plug and play is pretty rock on. It's Thunderbolt 3 compatible? It's got one USB-C with 100 power upstream port. Go ahead. Yeah, I was just going to say, yeah, Thunderbolt 3 compatible,

so that's important for anybody that's using Thunderbolt 3. This dock itself is not a native Thunderbolt 3 dock, so you are not going to achieve the highest Thunderbolt speed rates. We make Thunderbolt 3 docking stations specifically for that, but those also cost more. But this dock will perform well no matter what you plug into, a Thunderbolt 3 workstation or a USB-C workstation. Yeah, once you say Thunderbolt, you start getting into the money.

But that's awesome. It'll work with it and at least give you the best that you can do. Yeah, even the cabling and everything, Just say Thunderbolt, you start getting into the money. But that's awesome. It'll work with it and at least give you the best it can do. Even the cabling and everything, the price just doubles on everything. It's got one USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C port, four USB 3.0 ports, one fast charging, one gigabyte Ethernet port. It's got one 3.5 millimeter combo audio in and out for mic speakers headphones Apple and Nokia headset audio detection it includes USB to see the USB to a cable and make your USB a laptops can battle with the

targets USB C docking stations I actually need that on my laptop and power tips include power Acer As uh oh you guys have the tips for the okay cool uh compact dell fujitsu uh gateway hp ibm lenovo and toshiba yeah and a three-year piece of this yeah so this this not only will this charge your USB-C laptop at 100 watts of power, but it also comes with a secondary cable which can charge your legacy laptop. So if you've got a Lenovo, an HP, or a Dell, you know, multiple computers, it comes with the tips. So you actually can just plug the tip in, and you can charge your legacy laptop. Plus, it has the USB-C to USB-A adapter,

so now you can plug it into a USB 3.0 port, and you're actually charging and using your legacy laptop to drive the monitors. So it's backwards compatible and forwards compatible. Forwards for USB-C and Thunderbolt 3, and backwards for USB-A and all the legacy laptops that are out there. And one of the other things I love these docks for is they're not only great for just standalone PCs, they're, of course, really awesome for laptops because you can have literally all your desk stuff ready to go plugged into the dock,

and you can bring your laptop from home or wherever you're traveling. You can just plug it in, and you don't have to sit and go, okay, well, I've got to hook up this, and I've got to hook up that well, I've got to hook up this, and I've got to hook up that, and I've got to hook up this, and I've got to hook up that. It's all plugged in the dock. You just plug the dock into your laptop when you show up to work or wherever you've got that thing stationed, and away you go. So it's pretty darn awesome.

And that is a great price. We've reviewed a lot of docks on the Chris Voss Show, and I can tell you it's a great price. In fact, we're going to look forward to reviewing it on the Chris Voss Show as well. Yeah, I think that's the convenience for a lot of enterprise and corporate companies is they're dealing with consultants and people that are coming in and using hot desks and hoteling spaces and open workspaces. And so a lot of enterprise and corporate companies will supply just two monitors and a docking station.

And they don't know what computer you're going to walk in with. It could be a Mac. It could be a PC. It could be any brand. It could be any operating system. So if you've got a Targus Universal docking station in that space, it'll plug in. It'll power. It'll operate with any of those brands or operating systems.

So it becomes very easy for our corporate customers to have these open workspaces where anybody can walk in, sit down with a laptop, and now they've immediately got dual monitors and increased their productivity and makes it easier for them to work. Well, you bring up a good point. Silicon Valley and a lot of companies now have open workspaces. I know I have some friends that we work do these they do these office spaces where you can go to them and everything's kind of set up and you pay like a monthly or uh sometimes like a daily fee

to use them and that's really the digital nomadic lifestyle and of course the silicon valley you know most of the offices now they're just wide open uh you sit anywhere there's uh there's no assigned seats there's no uh places where they have to sit. You know, everyone's assigned. So everyone just kind of sits and parks anywhere. So this would be a great device to take and have. Geez, you could sell like 500 of these, like, I don't know, Facebook or some company.

And they can take and do it. If you're on the nomadic lifestyle where you're using WeWork or some of these other places to set your stuff up, this would be a great thing for companies like that to take and have because people can just walk up, they can plug in, do all their programming and all their different work that they do for coding. Or whether it's graphic design or for me, it's a lot of photo editing and video editing. All that sort of good stuff. You can have that availability with you.

Yeah, and that's right. And Targus, we also make multiple different sized travel docks too. So we make USB-C and USB-A travel docks. So that's one. They're very small size docking stations. You can carry them in your laptop bag or your backpack. And then wherever you go, you can plug into anything because they have multiple ports on them.

They have, you know, even legacy VGA ports and any port you would need. And you plug it into your laptop and now you're ready to work wherever you sit down. So if you're traveling or if you get, you know, a big enterprise company where you,

you do need that. We work with a lot of financial and banking institutions where they need to have those dual monitors at every single desk. They need to just purchase docking stations that are universal, and they'll work with everything. It's very easy to come to Targus and get that. Awesome. You guys make a lot of other docks, too, as well. People can go to the website.

In fact, we should plug the website. What's the website for Targus? Yeah, Targus is just Targus.com. So at Targus.com, you'll find all of our latest docking stations. And then you'll see the breadth of our product as well because a lot of people know us for laptop bags. You know, laptop bags are still a big part of our business. But technology is actually starting to outgrow and outpace that whole bag part of our business. And so that's why we're doing a big push in technology here at Infocom.

And then you'll see us at other trade shows throughout the year at Microsoft Ignite, at CES, where we'll be pushing a lot of technology. We'll be looking forward to seeing you guys at CES. CES is always a big show for the Chris Voss Show. And then usually we square away Robert Shapiro somewhere and put a mic in his face. He's a really great guy. He puts on a hell of a show. And Infocom is just really awesome.

I mean, you guys have, one thing that's going on at Infocom is you have these, the big popular thing is to buy these giant displays that cost a freaking fortune. They build them and all that good stuff. So anything more we need to know about the Dock 570 USZ? I think you just need to know that Dock 570 is going to be available in August, and

right now we do have the quad video Dock 520, which is the HD docking station. That's available right now. You can purchase that today on our website at Tardis.com, but if you want to wait for that Enterprise Class 4K, 4 video docking station, that'll be available in August.

That is awesome, Sauce. And also that, I'll point out that has dual display link DL690 chip technology, so you've got some powerful chips in there to process that data as well. Anything, what else do we want to cover with you guys that you guys are doing there at Infocom?

I think, let me just plug, the other thing that we're showing at Infocom, which is our secondary part of our booth, is we're partnered with Samsung, and we work with them on their Samsung DeX technology. So Samsung DeX, that's where you're taking their tablet or their phone, and you're turning that into your desktop workspace. So that's imagine walking in with your phone, you plug your phone into a dock, and Targus is making that dock. And that dock now is allowing your phone to run your entire desktop. So the phone becomes your computer instead of walking in with your laptop, or the tablet becomes your computer. So what we're going to see in the future and what we're starting to see

right now, and you're going to see this rolling out at some banks across the United States, is that they are going to start doing away with their laptop and their desktop computers, and they're going to start using tablets or phones to run the bank or run the point of sale and these guys are going to be talking to you on the tablet and taking information and then walking you back to their desk plugging the tablet into a dock and then that is going to plug into a samsung monitor which now runs the samsung dex environment and through that dex environment you don't need a laptop or desktop anymore.

Now, all you've got is a tablet, and it's working as your workstation. Wow. And so Targus is involved closely with Samsung in developing and making sure you have everything on the desktop to serve that. And we have that on display in our booth here at Infocom as well. And it's a very simple docking station that plugs into a Samsung monitor, and it's using a Samsung Tab S4 that plugs into the dock. And now you've got a complete workspace.

You've got a targetless mouse and keyboard, and you're running that just as if you just plugged in with a laptop. That's really cool. That's brilliant. That just reinforces my whole thing that Samsung is very innovative and probably one of the most innovative companies out there. AT&T sends us all the phones, and Samsung, we love the Samsung products. And I think that's going to take our world to even more mobile

because everything goes on with your phone. For me, my whole life is my phone. If I lose my phone, I think God, a lot of it gets backed up in the cloud. But still, so many people are interacting with their phone. They have a relationship with their phone that's probably not healthy sometimes. But that's our world. I mean, we're putting our points in there, our tasks, everything that's in there. And I've always been impressed when I go to companies and they have like some sort of

phone point of sale system that they're using. And, you know, like I go to rent a car now and they'll have like a little thing that looks like a note, eight or nine or whatever. And they'll be like, and you're just like, hey, man, this is, you know, beats going in the office and behind a desk in the old days. They're like, hang on, click, click, click. Let me click this out. And where everyone has their data in there and everything else,

some people are more comfortable using their phones these days than they are a laptop or computer. Yeah, no, that's true. And so more and more, we're glued to our phones. And you can imagine, at some point, the phone could evolve to become the computer for our desktop as well. And I think in the long run, that is what's going to happen. Computers will shrink.

We'll still have big workstations. We're doing powerful stuff. But for everyday mobile working, we could just use our phones and that could plug into our desktop. And so you're going to make it more easy for their for their uh workers to work in a mobile environment and the best way to do that is either through a tablet or a phone and so samsung's really pushing this hard and they're going to keep growing that direction and that's why we're partnered up with them that's awesome sauce awesome sauce. And what booth are you guys at again? Pardon, what was that?

Booth number 4887. Sorry, I'll go ahead and throw that in there because I just saw it in your thing here. So anything more we need to know about what you guys are doing there at the show? I think that's it. But I would love to see everybody stop by our booth at InfoComm, booth number 4887, and stop by. We're actually giving away some free prizes at the booth, too, so stop by. Everybody wins a prize if you stop by, so don't miss it. You should have said that at the beginning.

I'm coming now, for sure. Even though I'm sick, I'm going to have a fight there and get those prizes. That's awesome, son. So if you're at the show at Infocom, go see the Targus booth at booth 4887. And then if you aren't at Infocom, go check them out. Give me that.com one more time. It's Targus.com. Targus.com. And you're going to see a lot of cool things at Targus.

They have a whole bunch of stuff. And for some reason, the Chris Voss Show, you know, we seem to know everybody, but we've never reviewed a lot of products, I don't think, from Targus. So we're going to look forward to a relationship with you guys where we can get into some of your stuff. But you guys have a ton of 4K docking stations, dual display docking stations, power delivery, iPad cases you're really big into, Samsung cases, Universal cases. Do you do phone cases or is it all just tablet cases?

It's mostly tablet cases. We have Cine is another brand that we own, and Cine is a high-end leather brand, and they do phone cases. So we make high-end leather phone cases, but otherwise we make tablet cases and all the laptop bags and briefcases and backpacks and everything else that you expect to see from Targus. Totes, roller bags, briefcases, all that sort of good stuff. So be sure to go to us.targus.com.

Check those babies out if you're not at info.com. 2019. Andrew, we certainly appreciate you guys coming by the show today and giving us a lowdown on what things are going on there. Yeah, thanks a lot, Chris. Really appreciate it, and thanks for having me on. Alright, well thank you very much to my audience.

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