General Category Archives

January 23, 2008

Business Technology Trends For 2008

Post by Michael Caton, Collaboration Evangelist, Webex
Executives looking for some prescriptive recommendations on business ideas for 2008 should look at Eight Business Technology Trends to Watch (registration required) from McKinsey Quarterly. These aren't '08 specific, each idea includes examples of how it has been put into practice by innovators, in some cases for several years. Actually the title doesn't do the the topic justice -- my recommendation: no watching, just doing.

The authors tackle co-creation with the first two topics, and even that might not give the topic it's due. Often times co-creation involves clearing a significant hurdle, "not invented here" syndrome. The authors point out the significant downside of loss of control of innovation and intellectual property, but developing that intellectual property costs time and money. Sometimes making use of another organization's expertise makes for a winning go to market strategy.

Another downside the authors noted, competing for the attention of the best and brightest contributors, isn't just a problem when working with partners. That can strike internal projects as well, particularly at large organizations. That problem also falls into the "two-way street" category, partners aren't the only ones that get distracted by other projects.

Posted by Cisco PR at 11:21 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

January 14, 2008

Mac’s Coming to an Enterprise Near You

Post by M. Michael Acosta, Manager, Engineering

Mac users everywhere are eagerly anticipating the upcoming Macworld Expo. As a prelude, this week Macworld.com published their set of predictions for 2008. One prediction in particular resonated with what I’m seeing at some of our customers and within Cisco. MacWorld senior editor Dan Frakes wrote:

"A new Mac market: The debut of Leopard, along with a general dissatisfaction with Windows Vista, will open doors for the Mac in the enterprise market. In fact, we’ll see a few major U.S. companies switch to the Mac platform—some gradually, but at least a couple in a major public migration. We’ll also see a resurgence of the Mac platform in higher education."

Just a few years ago within Cisco, Macs were conspicuous mostly in their absence. Today, it is not unusual to find an increasing number of Apple logos across from me in meetings. For the first time in quite a while, Macs are again an orderable laptop option for Cisco employees.

Given this, it should come as no surprise that Cisco has invested significantly in supporting the Mac in the enterprise with our products. Cisco Unified Personal Communicator, our next-generation unified communications client, was developed in parallel on both Mac and Windows. It is a fully native Mac application with a user-interface developed specifically for the platform. By the time Steve Jobs takes that stage to introduce the next insanely great Apple product, news of the release of the latest version of Personal Communicator should have hit the wires bringing full localization on both platforms and support for Leopard.

Cisco also offers SSL and IPSec VPN clients for the Mac OS, as well as our MeetingPlace and WebEx web conferencing solutions. And, much to the delight of Cisco’s own Mac users, Apple has also made support for EAP-FAST a native part of OS X.

These successes are valuable to Apple as a way to reinforce the use of Macs in the enterprise, but they also help Cisco by tangibly validating our cross-platform philosophy. Even if a customer has no Macs today, or the Macs are currently only in the “creative” department, it looks like there’s an increasing chance that Mac use will grow in the future. Just the possibility means that Mac support is more likely to be an important part of our customer’s needs. Much more broadly, it is in all our interests to encourage innovative and exciting devices and applications. Healthy competition is great for that.

I look forward to enabling all users to communicate as richly and naturally as face-to-face – regardless of their choice of operating system, device, or platform.

Posted by Cisco PR at 12:40 PM Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

November 14, 2007

Of Tricks and Telephony

Post by Nader Nanjiani, product and systems marketing manager in Cisco's Unified Communications business unit

At a recent event, while lamenting how the phone on his desk did about the same it did years ago, a senior executive from an email company cried out: "Teach your old phone new tricks." Well, it’s about time that the executive not only upgrade his desk telephone, but also update his knowledge about the unified communications industry before venturing in.

The old phone has already learned a trick or two since the arrival of IP phones. For instance you can dial by clicking a name within a customer relationship management (CRM) application like Salesforce.com and have the call originate over your desk phone or soft-phone. You can look up your daily calendar, stock quotes and weather on your desk phone - much like you can on an iPhone – without the need to turn on your desktop PC. Some users are ordering food, making reservations, and even looking up Google maps on their IP phones. Others are conducting time and attendance applications or checking up inventory using IP phone screens. What’s more: Corridor cruisers now pick up calls directed to their IP phones anywhere on their cell phones and seamlessly switch it back in between to their IP phone upon arrival - without ever tipping off that they have long cut the chains to their desktops.

The same executive and some of his colleagues will share results of a study with audiences at conferences that suggest that voice over IP delivers substandard quality. Interestingly, they never specify whether the tests were conducted over a public or a private network. Reality check: New high-fidelity IP phones put “toll quality” of the mid-1990’s to shame. The vendor with the largest market share, Cisco, ships only IP phones. A question left unanswered each time by this company is that while a network can understandably be engineered for organizations to manage reliable quality of service or security, how a desktop can do that.

As a result of the information shared by the speaker, the industry is left wondering which to believe: The executive who is not up on the industry himself or the incoherent study that he cites. Speaking of tricks, maybe it’s time the company stopped playing them on room full of audiences.

Posted by Cisco PR at 02:20 PM Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)