Easy, affordable solution helps companies achieve faster results and stay connected to people and resources
I recently wrote about how an IP-based voice system can help small businesses save money. This type of unified communications (UC) solution provides other benefits, too, such as boosting employee productivity, achieving better results faster, and creating a more collaborative company.
In a survey about the value of unified communications, Forrester Research found that small businesses benefit from UC with more effective team collaboration, rapid problem resolution, and increased employee productivity. Specifically, 69 percent of the small and medium-sized companies polled indicated they would improve efficiency. And 65 percent said they would improve competitiveness with the ability to reduce business delays.
Yesterday at Cisco’s Partner Summit in New Orleans, Cisco announced a new unified communications solution for mid-size customers: the Cisco Unified Communications Manager Business Edition 3000. The CMBE3000 is uniquely designed to meet the needs of these growing mid-size customers without sacrificing functionality or mobility.
To find out more, listen to Roberto De La Mora, Senior Director of Worldwide Collaboration Solutions Marketing at Cisco, as he describes the CMBE 3000 and what it means for customers and partners.
I’m really excited by this new Cisco and Librestream MMVC solution. Lots of information out on the web, and lots of questions so I thought I’d put a brief video together to give you an introduction and to see if we can get a discussion going and also to see if we can answer some of the questions for you. The video starts talking about what really matters. What are the pain-points that manufacturers and industry have today? How do they get hold of the right people to fix things if something goes wrong, and how can they say ‘I see what you mean now’ -- and really mean it?
All this matters because keeping things running matters. Being able to communicate effectively in real time using video, speech and pictures -- globally, if need be -- matters. Knowing what’s going on and having clearer visibility matters. Working out what to do next, whether it’s developing a new product or fixing an operational problem fast, matters a lot.
Walking the floor of Enterprise Connect (formerly VoiceCon) today, one is immediately struck by the variety of tablets hitting the marketplace. IT managers have a plethora of devices to choose from and it’s clear the tablet can become more than just another endpoint – it can become a tool for dramatically improving mobile productivity and employee engagement.
Based on what customers are telling us, here are a variety of points we feel are critical to consider as IT managers look to deploy tablets across the enterprise:
1. Security, Security, Security: When deploying enterprise wide tablets, IT managers should consider how the device will provide business-grade security – including media encryption, device authentication, network security on both wired and wireless networks, and VPN connectivity.
2. Extension of Collaboration Architecture: Users should be able to easily and seamlessly take advantage of a variety of existing collaboration capabilities such as business-grade voice communications, conferencing in all forms, Instant Messaging (IM), presence, email, and virtual teaming from a single mobile device.
Choosing a tablet that fits enterprise needs
3. Enterprise Administration & Management: IT administrators are keen on simplifying the administration and management of tablets by retaining a common dialing plan, ensuring interoperability with other user devices, and bulk provisioning for scalable deployments. IT managers should also have the choice, by user, to grant (or deny) permissions to download applications from various marketplaces based on existing security and provisioning policies.
4. Interoperable Video Communications: Our enterprise customers require a tablet solution that not only natively supports mobile video using a common dialing plan, but is also interoperable with existing multi-vendor video solutions and video standards such as H.264.
5. Powerful Computing Capability: For business use, our customers think a tablet should have processing power that enables the consumption and sharing of data as well as the creation and editing of content – to deliver a full desktop experience.
6. It’s In the Cloud: Desktop virtualization lets you flexibly and securely host software applications in the data center and use the network to deliver those applications as a service anytime and anywhere. Our customers are saying this virtualized environment should extend seamlessly to the device.
7. Commitment to Open Source: Enterprise tablets that use open platforms, such as the Android OS, can tap into an expanding Android developer community for building business-class productivity applications and even allow customers to develop their own custom applications.
What would you add to this list and how do the needs of your enterprise compare? I look forward to seeing your suggestions in the comments below.
For more information about tablet choices and Cisco’s Cius, please visit here.
So much happened on Tuesday at Cisco Partner Summit: musical performances, artist Frency painting in the moment on stage, as well as keynotes from SVP Keith Goodwin, Cisco CEO John Chambers, SVP Edison Peres, and the new Cisco COO Gary Moore. We also heard big announcements around cloud and collaborative professional services.
We had some other exciting things happening on Tuesday, so watch our short Partner Update newscast for the day’s highlights.
Did you miss any of the sessions from Tuesday? Don’t worry, you can still watch them… Read More »
