science

Highfive (company)

Highfive (company) is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Highfive (company) rather than just read about it. In short: Highfive is an American video conferencing company which combines cloud-based software with its proprietary in-room video conferencing hardware. The company, established in 2012 by former Google employee Shan Sinha, has its headquarters in Redwood City, California.

Key takeaways

Highfive (company) belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Highfive (company) to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Highfive (company) from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Highfive is an American video conferencing company which combines cloud-based software with its proprietary in-room video conferencing hardware. The company, established in 2012 by former Google employee Shan Sinha, has its headquarters in Redwood City, California. In 2016, Fortune named Highfive on its list of the "10 Best Small Workplaces in Technology.". In September 2020, Highfive is acquired by Dialpad

History Highfive was founded in 2012 by Shan Sinha and Jeremy Roy. Sinha, who was one of the developers of Google Drive, noticed while working for Google that there was a very high demand for videoconferencing, with tens of thousands of video calls regularly made. He left Google to found Highfive, believing that the market leader, Skype, was not “secure or robust enough for business needs.” Sinha’s vision for Highfive is to “make videoconferencing as commonplace as e-mail in business.” After it was established, the company worked in stealth mode as Parlay Labs from 2012 until Highfive’s launch in October, 2014. In March, 2015 Highfive announced that they had raised over $45 million in total venture capital. Investors in the firm include General Catalyst Partners, Google Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Drew Houston, Aaron Levie, Marc Benioff (Salesforce.com) and Shishir Mehrotra (YouTube). In March, 2016 the company announced a 341% growth in customers during 2015 and that it had surpassed the milestone of one million call minutes per week from over 1400 customers. In an interview with Jim Cramer, Sinha commented on the market success: "We are seeing some really big secular trends happening that are causing people to be more comfortable with video. The new workforce is all at an age now that they grew up with video.” In May, Highfive announced that they had incorporated telephone conferencing service Dolby Voice into its services.

Services Highfive’s software is cloud-based and linked to its in-room video conferencing device. Its applications work on personal computers, iPhone, iPad or Android devices, and require little time to set up. Bluetooth technology enables calls to be initiated on a mobile device or tablet and then beamed onto a large TV screen, which the Los Angeles Times likened to “an Apple TV with a 1080p HD camera and a microphone with a 30-foot range attached.” ‘’Entrepreneur’’ wrote of the product: “Each device delivers HD video and high-fidelity audio. Installation is easy and straightforward. The interface is intuitive. There are no extra cables or wires; instead, each user downloads a special extension for the Google Chrome web browser, which allows the system to share screens wirelessly from the main interface onto individual employees’ laptops or smartphones.” Sinha stated in a March, 2015 interview with Bloomberg that video conference equipment market leaders such as Cisco, Polycom and Huawei have wealthier, IT savvy customers who are the "only ones who can afford the complexity and the cost of those systems, which are entirely too hard to use.” He argues that Highfive is unique because it offers a product of comparable quality and better functionality, available for businesses of all sizes, in any room, at 1/20 of the cost. Philipp Karcher, a senior analyst with Cambridge, Massachusetts based Forrester Research concurred that Highfive’s strength lies in it accessibility to smaller firms and its relatively lower cost. A Polycom-sponsored study conducted by Wainhouse Research found that Highfive was "going after a market of about 30 million to 50 million meeting rooms." Known clients include Mimeo.com, Warby Parker, Shutterfly, Evernote, Patagonia, Slack, and Zenefits. Fortune states that in June, 2016 Highfive now faces competition from Logitech, Lifesize, Huawei, and ZTE in targeting smaller firms with video conferencing services.

Surveys Highfive has become known for its surveys into workforce habits. In September, 2015 Highfive commissioned a poll, in which they surveyed 1200 office employees on distractions during the workday. In June, 2016 the company, in conjunction with Zogby Analytics, conducted a video conferencing survey which found that nearly half of the 800 respondents found video conferencing unsettling due to being conscious of their appearance on camera.

See also Telecollaboration Teleconference Videotelephony

References

External links Official website

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Highfive (company)

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Highfive (company) claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Highfive (company) before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Highfive (company) ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Highfive (company)

In research: Highfive (company) appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Highfive (company) in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Highfive (company) is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Teleconferencing, Web conferencing, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Highfive (company) outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Highfive (company) in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Highfive (company) means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Highfive (company) out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Highfive (company) in simple terms?

Why does Highfive (company) matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Highfive (company)?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Highfive (company).