ClearOne Communications, Inc. (ClearOne) is an audio conferencing company that develops, manufactures, markets, and services a line of audio conferencing products, which range from tabletop conferencing phones to professionally installed audio systems. The company also manufactures and sells conferencing furniture. The Company's end-user customers include large companies and institutions, small and medium-sized businesses, educational institutions, and government organizations, as well as individual consumers. ClearOne mostly sells its products to these end-user customers through a network of independent distributors who in turn sells the products to dealers, systems integrators and value-added resellers. The Company also sells products on a limited basis directly to dealers, systems integrators, value-added resellers and end-users. The company's audio conferencing products feature Distributed Echo Cancellation and noise cancellation technologies to enhance communication during a conference call by eliminating echo and background noise. During the fiscal year June 30, 2007, the Company sold its document and educational camera product line to Ken-A-Vision Manufacturing Co. Inc.

Professional Audio Conferencing Products

ClearOne's professional audio conferencing products include the Converge Pro, XAP and Converge 560/590 product lines. The PSR1212 product features similar technologies and is used for sound reinforcement applications. The Converge Pro, in which beta units were provided to certain strategic partners in June 2007, is expected to eventually replace the popular XAP series of audio conferencing systems. The PSR1212 is a digital matrix mixer that provides advanced audio processing, microphone mixing, and routing for local sound reinforcement. The Converge Pro, XAP and PSR1212 products are audio processing systems, which are also used for integrating high-quality audio with video and Web conferencing systems.

In November 2005, the Company introduced the Converge 560 and Converge 590 professional conferencing systems. The products are positioned between its conferencing product lines both in terms of functionality and price, and are fit for rooms requiring customized microphone and speaker configurations (up to nine microphones can be connected) along with connectivity to video and Web conferencing systems. The Converge products also offer speech lift to amplify a presenter's voice in the local room. ClearOne also offers a Tabletop Controller for the Converge Pro and XAP platforms.

Premium Conferencing Systems

RAV is a complete, out-of-the-box system that includes an audio mixer, Bose loudspeakers, microphones, and a wireless control device. In February 2005, the Company introduced a wired control device as a part of its RAV audio conferencing system offering. RAV offers many audio processing technologies from professional audio conferencing products without the need for professional installation and programming. It features Distributed Echo Cancellation, noise cancellation, microphone gating, and a drag-and-drop graphical user interface for easy system setup, control and management.

Tabletop Conferencing Phones

The MAX product line comprises MAXAttach Wireless, MAX Wireless, MAXAttach, MAX EX, MAXAttach IP, and MAX IP tabletop conferencing phones. MAX Wireless is designed for use in executive offices or small conference rooms with multiple participants. MAX Wireless can be moved from room to room within 150 feet of its base station and gives flexibility in covering larger conference room areas.

The MAXAttach and MAX EX wired phones feature a capability, instead of just adding extension microphones for use in larger rooms, the phones can be daisy chained together, up to a total of four phones. This provides even distribution of microphones, loudspeakers, and controls for better sound quality and improved user access in medium to large conference rooms. In addition, all MAXAttach wired versions can be separated and used as single phones in smaller conference rooms.

The company's additions to the MAX family are the MAXAttach IP and MAX IP, ClearOne's first voice-over Internet protocol (VoIP) conference phones, which are based on SIP signaling protocol. These phones feature the same ability to daisy-chain up to four phones together, providing outstanding room coverage.

Personal Conferencing Products

Chat 50 personal speaker phone is a crossover technology delivers crystal-clear full-duplex audio performance, and can be used in a variety of applications with a number of devices: personal computers (PCs), cell phones, telephones, iPods and Moving Picture Experts Group layer-three audio (MP3), and desktop video conferencing systems. The Chat 150 offers many of the same connectivity options as the Chat 50, but comes in a larger form factor and features three microphones compared to the single microphone on the Chat 50. The Chat 150 connects to enterprise telephone handsets, PCs, and video conferencing systems.

Other Products

The Company complements its audio conferencing products with microphones, conferencing-specific furniture, and until August 2006 document and education cameras. ClearOne's selection of wood, metal, and laminate conferencing furniture features audiovisual carts; plasma screen carts and pedestals, and video conferencing carts, tables, cabinets, and podiums.

The Company competes with Polycom, Biamp Systems, Lectrosonics, Peavey, Shure, WideBand Solutions, Aethra, Konftel, LifeSize, Panasonic, Actiontec, Iogear, mVox, Phoenix, and USRobotics, Audio Technica, Global Media, Harmon Music, Shure, Accuwood, Comlink, and Video Furniture International.