0 likes

   1 like

We’ve all been in technology long enough to know that competing vendors catch up with each other on features, benefits etc – in the same way the big social platforms have done over the years.

The capacity to change (a product) before the case for change becomes desperately obvious is what a company should buy. WebEx Social has 4 releases a year with many features based on customer feedback because you know, this kinda reduces the risk of getting it wrong.

Cisco’s deep integration with voice and video is of itself a killer app because it makes people feel ‘strong and connected’ (try writing a business case around that!).

That’s why right now, Cisco is the finest runner in that race.

   0 likes

   0 likes

* Cisco wants to sell you Jabber, WebEx. Telepresence, Call Manager and Switches (all overpriced with high maintenance costs IMHO). Microsoft has one software program (and 5 vendors making phone handsets) that can do it all at typically 50-66% the costs of a phone only Cisco solution.

* Cisco’s problem is they love to sell overpriced gear with high maintenance costs. Why would you want best of breed devices…when you guy overpay for the Cisco label stamped on your phone.

* The hauppauge of Cisco software and hardware raises costs to train and provision users. With Lync, you just enable an Active Directory user…inside or outside the company…with desk phones (from Polycom, Snom, Aastra, etc.) or using your PC.

PS – Like Juniper, I think Cisco is a swell routing company. That doesn’t mean they know how to make users productive with that experience (over Microsoft, the office productivity firm)…and it takes more than upgrading to 10GB Ethernet to make a user communicate effectively. IMHO, Lync will make a user twice as productive in a real world environment with elegant simplicity of unified communications tool…which is why it grows at 300% every year in the marketplace.

   1 like

Apart from WebEx product, how is Cisco product set that diffrent?

   0 likes

We have all noticed that the Internet is becoming the network of the future for all forms of online business applications, as well as for the many types of person-to-person contacts. “Everything as a Service” is reducing IT’s old role in enterprise organizations for hardware systems and software development (whether on premise or not) to managing the security and cost efficiencies of the various software applications that are being offered by third-party developers as hosted, managed services.

“Everything as a Service” is complemented by end user BYOD choice of networked endpoints, which include desktops, laptops/tablets, and dual persona smartphones. So, since the applications are moving to the “clouds” and the endpoints are personalized end user choices, the battle for control is showing up at the network connectivity level that Cisco has been long focused on from a hardware perspective. Microsoft is exploiting it’s domination of desktop software tools, which they are now moving to their public cloud.

Both Cisco and Microsoft want to standardize and support end user device interfaces for the best mobile “User Experience” that will influence “Consumer BYOD” and business “mobile apps” developers. That will include legacy telephony options (“click-to-call”), but, as Steve Taylor’s recent survey points out, we don’t have all the standards (yet) for Mobile UC. So, SIs and channel partners will have to do the heavy IT migration lifting for most organizations, because it is not just traditional person-to-person phone (or video) calls any more, but also involves business process applications (CEBP).

   1 like

I think Cisco is working to combine all the pieces: CUCM, WebEx, Jabber.

Right now neither Microsoft nor Cisco has a complete “collaboration story”. Each are working to craft their story as quickly as possible. I applaud Cisco for commissioning the recent survey, I just think they perhaps stretched some of their interpretations.

Cisco has an advantage in that it clearly has a base of enterprise telephony customers. However, this is also a disadvantage in that UC is not voice and in that perhaps moving to a true UC solution may cannibalize some voice business.

Microsoft has an advantage in that it has a strong IT following related to Active Directory and Exchange. However this is a disadvantage when it comes to voice because sometimes these IT folks under-estimate the complexities of real-time media and the required network engineering to support.

Kevin

   2 likes

We have all noticed that the Internet is becoming the network of the future for all forms of online business applications, as well as for the many types of person-to-person contacts. “Everything as a Service” is reducing IT’s old role in enterprise organizations for hardware systems and software development (whether on premise or not) to managing the security and cost efficiencies of the various software applications that are being offered by third-party developers as hosted, managed services.

“Everything as a Service” is complemented by end user BYOD choice of networked endpoints, which include desktops, laptops/tablets, and dual persona smartphones. So, since the applications are moving to the “clouds” and the endpoints are personalized end user choices, the battle for control is showing up at the network connectivity level that Cisco has been long focused on from a hardware perspective. Microsoft is exploiting it’s domination of desktop software tools, which they are now moving to their public cloud.

Both Cisco and Microsoft want to standardize and support end user device interfaces for the best mobile “User Experience” that will influence “Consumer BYOD” and business “mobile apps” developers. That will include legacy telephony options (“click-to-call”), but, as Steve Taylor’s recent survey points out, we don’t have all the standards (yet) for Mobile UC. So, SIs and channel partners will have to do the heavy IT migration lifting for most organizations, because it is not just traditional person-to-person phone calls any more, but also involves business process applications (CEBP).

   2 likes

   0 likes