Since its founding in 1999, Cbeyond, the Atlanta-based managed services provider, has tried to remain true to its name. The company which focuses exclusively on small- and medium-sized businesses must observe and act on technology trends well in advance to maintain its position with its customers as both a communications and hosted IT provider.
We recently had an opportunity to interview Brent Cobb, Cbeyond’s Chief Revenue and Customer Officer to hear how Cbeyond enables its small business customers to reap the benefits of advanced technology usually unavailable without the IT infrastructure of a big business.
Cisco: What kind of challenges does Cbeyond see facing its customers? Read More »
In David Lawrence’s and Glenn Anderson’s recent Manufacturing.net article on ‘The Fall and Rise of the American Manufacturer’, the authors are rather optimistic about the current state of U.S. manufacturing. Citing the Institute of Supply Management indicators of manufacturing activity expansion for 19+ consecutive months and their own observations from surviving their 125-year old employer, Cincinnati Milacron, filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009 and emerging one year later to thriving profitability and bolder investments in innovation, the authors believe manufacturing is now fueling a sustainable economic recovery from the global recession.
Many economists agree, and in the world of public opinion, a recent survey by Delloitte and The Manufacturing Institute showed that 78% of Americans believe that U.S. manufacturing is vitally important to our economic prosperity and 76% believe it is also important to our standard of living. The survey ranked manufacturing ahead of technology, financial services, health care, communications, and retail. My own optimism is checked by one key consideration required for long term success: Is it SUSTAINABLE?
Congratulations to Boeing on shipping it’s first 787 Dreamliner to ANA (All Nippon Airways). The world has been waiting and US Manufacturing has delivered. But it’s not just US Manufacturing -- suppliers as far away as Australia, Italy, Japan and Russia, to name but a few countries have been working with Boeing Engineers to bring the airplane to market -- and using Cisco or Cisco Partner technologies to do so!
The video, courtesy Associated Press’ YouTube Channel, shows the first Boeing 787 Dreamliner Airplane being handed over by Jim Albaugh, President and CEO, Boeing Commercial Airplanes, to ANA’s President and CEO - with a large key!
Taking a strategic approach to your network will support your business today and in the future
Did you know that in 2009, more data was created than in all prior years combined? That 60 percent of employees believe they don’t need to be in the office to be productive and efficient? And, that by 2015, companies will generate 50 percent of web sales via their presence in social media and mobile devices?
At the rate in which data is growing, technology is advancing, and devices are proliferating; you don’t want to trust your business to a network that’s just “good enough.” Taking a strategic approach to your network makes good business sense.
The right network is one that’s configured to fit your company’s needs, supports your business goals, and has the potential to transform the way you do business. The right network not only empowers the applications and services you’re using today but also those you’re likely to implement in the future—from reliable, secure connectivity for an expanding mobile workforce, to adopting cloud services.
Other benefits of having the right network for your business include:
Earlier this year, we announced our vision for Cisco Jabber, a unified communications application bringing together presence, instant messaging, voice, video, voice messaging, desktop sharing, and conferencing securely into one experience on any device, anywhere, and delivered through a traditional on-premises deployment, or via the cloud.
Cisco Jabber client
Jabber provides a simple way for business workers to easily and securely find the right people, to see if and on what device they are available, and to collaborate using their preferred method or device.
Last week, we took another big step in that vision, with the release of Cisco Jabber for Mac. This release delivers powerful new capabilities and a compelling user experience, providing what we feel is the richest UC experience for Mac users in the enterprise to date. Jabber for Mac continues our commitment to bring unified communications to “any device, anywhere.”
In addition to desktop environments, we have already delivered UC capabilities across Android, Blackberry, Nokia and Apple smartphone and tablet devices and will continue to roll out additional capabilities across these platforms. Beyond voice, voicemail and instant messaging, we have also included compelling applications for web conferencing (WebEx) and enterprise social software (Cisco Quad). In fact, WebEx became one of the most downloaded business applications on the iOS with over one million downloads from the iTunes App Store, and Cisco Mobile for iPhone won best of show at MacWorld when we introduced it in 2009.
Since its founding in 1999, Cbeyond, the Atlanta-based managed services provider, has tried to remain true to its name. The company which focuses exclusively on small- and medium-sized businesses must observe and act on technology trends well in advance to maintain its position with its customers as both a communications and hosted IT provider.
