Cisco Unveils New Ways to Collaborate in the Post-PC Era

Cisco Unveils New Ways to Collaborate in the Post-PC Era

November 18, 2011

At the Cisco Collaboration Summit 2011 event, Cisco unveiled new solutions to help people collaborate more effectively in the "post-PC" era. This era moves past the limitations of "PC centric" communication and instead evokes a "people centric" approach where people can collaborate anywhere, anytime and on any device or application. The advancements Cisco is introducing today --from Cisco WebEx to Cisco Jabber -- can change how people meet utilizing expanded cloud-based services, and can give workers an easy way to collaborate directly from Web applications they use every day, driving new levels of business productivity and competitiveness.

With today's announcement, Cisco is unveiling the next generation of Cisco WebEx. From HD video advancements and enhanced mobile capabilities that enable all new ways to prepare, meet and follow-up after a meeting, Cisco WebEx is helping to change the meeting experience. Additionally, Cisco is extending cloud conferencing to more people with a new free basic edition of WebEx designed for three people or less.

Cisco is also transforming the workspace by dramatically changing how people collaborate from Web applications they use every day, like SAP Streamwork, Cisco Quad or Google Apps. Today, whether mobile or at their desks, people find themselves having to open and utilize a variety of collaboration applications just to communicate on their own terms– whether that's via instant message (IM), voice, or video. Cisco is making collaboration much easier by advancing Cisco Jabber with a freely downloadable Web browser plug-in that will help extend collaboration to tens of millions of people that use web browsers on Windows- or Mac-based OS devices.

Zeus Kerravala, industry analyst, ZK Research: "With Cisco Jabber and the Jabber SDK, Cisco is extending collaboration beyond the Windows desktop to provide greater collaborative workspace options and flexibility. And with the introduction of the next generation of WebEx, Cisco continues to drive market transitions by helping users manage the meeting lifecycle in one work stream even while mobile. Cisco is the only vendor that can offer broad collaboration capabilities as a rich, mobile, virtual and now Web-based end user experience."

Cisco WebEx

Enabling greater cross company collaboration: Cisco's advanced WebEx Meetings spaces help users manage the complete meeting lifecycle. Individuals can:
- easily access and collaborate on files and presentations in the cloud from their PC or mobile device in real time at any time.
- see whether their colleagues are available through presence and initiate synchronous conversations via IM to prepare, collaborate and follow up.
- schedule meetings and share agendas, notes, action items, recordings and any other relevant documents at anytime.

In addition, IT Administrators can set policy controls providing users with a single identity across all Cisco WebEx SaaS offerings to meet corporate security guidelines.

Enhancing the mobile meeting experience: WebEx enables users to engage in two-way high-quality video meetings on mobile devices with new support for the Cisco Cius tablet and Apple iPhone on top of the currently supported Apple iPad. Voice over IP is now also available on the iPhone and iPad.
Integrating offerings to propel collaboration: With Cisco's "one-button-to-push" technology, WebEx users can now easily connect into Cisco TelePresence meetings from the Cisco Cius and Apple mobile devices. Integrated experiences will also be provided with Cisco Jabber, Cisco Quad and technology for optimizing medianets. The solution supports a set of common application programming interfaces (APIs) that can easily integrate third party applications such as CRM offerings.
Extending collaboration to more users via the Cisco Collaboration Cloud: With Cisco WebEx Basic Edition, Cisco will offer a free version of WebEx that supports up to three meeting participants and provides users with VoIP audio, standard video, IM, presence, desktop sharing and a 250 MB of storage. The Basic Edition is targeted for availability in the first quarter of 2012.
Availability: The beta version of Cisco WebEx is scheduled to be available in December 2011 in English and is primarily targeted for the Americas and Europe. General availability is planned starting in the first quarter of 2012 and will be available in multiple languages including English, French, German, Spanish (Castilian and Latin American), and Brazilian Portuguese.

Barry O'Sullivan, senior vice president and general manager, Collaboration and Communications Group, Cisco: "We've listened to our customers and significantly advanced Jabber and WebEx to enable seamless experiences on a range of devices and platforms, whether on premises or in the cloud. This approach further accelerates our strategic goal of enabling "any-to-any" collaboration while also making it easier than ever to collaborate with people inside or outside of an organization. In a post-PC era, businesses need ways to extend mobile, social, video and virtual collaboration on any mobile phone, tablet or Internet-connected device. We are bringing that to life today. "