Cisco Blog > Corporate Social Responsibility
March 26, 2013 at 9:40 pm PST
The field for this year’s DoGooder Video Awards is down to a handful of superb finalists. Now you can help choose the winners.
With great difficulty, the DoGooder team has narrowed an incredible array of funny, moving, and compelling videos that communicate important messages down to several finalists.
Voting is easy; just select your favorite video or videos in each category. Visitors can vote once per day through April 5, 2013. This is a great opportunity to get involved with cause video and have an impact on organizations doing crucial work.
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Tags: award, Cisco, dogooder, nonprofit, see3, social cause, video, youtube
As I walked the halls of Enterprise Connect last week for the 7th or 8th year in a row (who’s counting??), I noticed that video is still one of the key themes across many of the vendors. A few years back, it was introduced as the “next killer app” and while some think the sizzle has gone down, I would argue it is just heating up. Look at initiatives like WebRTC, one of the hot topics at the show. You couldn’t go to a panel or discussion without hearing or seeing how video will play a major role in the development of this space.
The reality is, our buyers are demanding more and more when it comes to video. It is no longer about meeting or boardroom-based video endpoints, it is now about getting video on any device a user has access to, being able to integrate the video experience with more traditional conferencing experiences, delivering video-based content across an organization, and oh yeah, doing all of this without killing my network and for an affordable price.
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Tags: Cisco, collaboration, enterprise connect, pervasive, TelePresence, video, WebEX
March 23, 2013 at 12:34 pm PST
Part 3 of A Six-Part Series: Transforming Higher Education in the US
This six-part series will focus on transformation of the traditional higher education system in the United States. The Need for Change and Shared Challenges were the focus of the previous chapters in this series.
From Cisco’s experience with higher education institutions in the U.S., those that are implementing change well are laser-focused on three critical areas: the ability to address questions of culture, to modernize teaching and learning, and to scale and propagate change across multiple, often divided, siloes within their institutions. Also, these institutions are using technology to manage each area more effectively.
Technology plays a critical role within each of these sectors, and if used wisely and artfully, can help to accelerate innovation and change. The rate and speed at which institutions need to change will never happen without technologies such as a solid core infrastructure, wired and wireless networks that enable ubiquitous connectivity, collaboration tools that provide seamless and robust communications, and new social collaboration platforms that support and extend the interaction of multiple communities, and ultimately, create a federated higher education society.
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Tags: culture, higher education, transformation, video
In my job as Cisco’s Field & Sales CTO for Borderless Networks in the Cisco EMEAR Theatre, I have the privilege of working directly with many Cisco customers and partners. The majority of these folks are what you’d call “Technical Decision Makers” and CTOs. They’re the IT leaders who do the planning, the strategy, and work on the evolution of their infrastructure.
And frankly, in my 20 years in the IT industry, I have never witnessed such a perfect IT storm!
We are in the midst of a time in IT, where, for most organizations, the current megatrends are having a profound impact on the relevance of their IT. This is felt in both the infrastructure technologies as well as the solutions required to support those megatrends. Read More »
Tags: byod, cloud, IoE, Megatrends, SDN, video
March 20, 2013 at 4:00 am PST
Today’s workplace is radically different from ten or even five years ago. Work has changed. The way people work has changed, and technology needs to be in synch with these changes. In the office, people still want access to traditional conveniences, including a desk phone. They also want access to high quality video from the desktop, and, some want to use many of the capabilities they use every day on their smart phones. It’s the whole “consumerization of IT” in action.
At Enterprise Connect 2013 this week, Cisco is debuting our latest addition to the enterprise desktop: the DX650. The DX650, orderable globally today, is an Android based phone that delivers traditional voice functionality, high-definition 1080p video, and many features commonly associated with today’s smartphones straight to the desktop.
And, on top of the Android operating system, we’ve added Cisco software, which provides better security, quality of service, manageability and higher fidelity audio and video. In short, this new disruptive technology is doing for the desk phone what smartphones did for mobile devices. Imagine – a smartphone experience for the desktop where users will never have to worry about battery life or dropped calls.
New capabilities include:
Cisco DX650
- High quality video: In addition to extending the 1080p high quality video experience to the desktop, users can also dial directly into a TelePresence meeting or connect to any standards-based video endpoint from the device.
- Smartphone capabilities at the desktop: The phone has many “smart” features or attributes, including a familiar Android user interface, instant access to critical applications and the ability to create multiple unique user profiles. Each profile can easily integrate with the user’s email and calendar as well as a full directory of contacts and speed dials. Applications such as Cisco Jabber, WebEx, and AnyConnect come preloaded on the phone.
- Cloud-readiness: This new phone enables users to access on-premises or cloud-based applications. Given that this is a fully compatible Android device (Compatibility Test Suite certified), users can now access enterprise applications such as customer service portals or CRM solutions from the DX650’s built in browser. Or, they can view content and share video with colleagues through cloud collaboration applications such as Cisco WebEx, available natively on the phone or through the Google Play store.
- Teleworking: We’ve also ensured that the DX650 supports multiple connectivity options. The DX650 can connect to the network wired or wirelessly. It also has a built in VPN client so remote users, working from home or in branch locations, can access their enterprise applications as needed.
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Tags: Android, Cisco, collaboration, desktop, unified communications, video
