This is the second in a multi-part series of blogs comparing and contrasting the Microsoft and Cisco approaches to providing enterprise collaboration in the post-PC world. The first blog from Cisco SVP and GM, Rowan Trollope, discussed the differences between a purpose-built architecture and a desktop-centric approach that needs third party extensions to make a working enterprise-class system. Today’s discussion will focus on how the two companies are approaching the trend towards “Bring your own device” (BYOD) to work.

BYOD or BYOWD?

There’s no question that in the Post-PC era, the “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) movement has had a dramatic impact in the workplace. Not so long ago IT spent considerable time and money provisioning and servicing identical black laptops for thousands of employees. Now it is becoming more common to see people walking through the door with a MacBook, a Galaxy S3 or an iPad to work, and nobody looks twice. You don’t need a crystal ball to see where this trend is going.

Recent estimates show that over 200 million Read More »

Tags: Bring your Own Device (BYOD), Bring Your Own Windows Device (BYOWD), collaboration, Post-PC Era

Every day I hear from customers who want to make collaboration more pervasive across their organizations. How do they take advantage of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device)? Does it make sense to move some solutions to the cloud? What about video?

Those are all good questions, but as my colleague Rowan Trollope, SVP and GM of Cisco Collaboration Technology Group, said today, this is just the beginning. Cisco commissioned a global survey of 3,320 IT leaders from nine countries (U.S., Canada, U.K., Sweden, Germany, India, Russia, New Zealand and Australia) to find out what’s really top of mind for them. The survey, conducted by Redshift Research, revealed some interesting observations, not only about what matters to IT leaders, but about the differences between Cisco’s and Microsoft’s approach to collaboration. Here are some of the top findings: Read More »

Tags: Bring your Own Device (BYOD), Bring Your Own Windows Device (BYOWD), cloud collaboration, collaboration, Redshift Research, research, video