When I meet with our partners, one word comes up in every conversation: simple. Partners want to sell what is simple. Customers want to buy what is simple. So let’s make this simple.
Our customers are in the middle of a network supercycle. They are modernizing their infrastructure because the network is the foundation for AI and for security. That work is happening at a pace I have rarely seen in my 23 years at Cisco. And every one of those customers will eventually ask the same question: now that I have this network, what do I do with it?
Where the platform becomes real
Collaboration devices are the last mile of AI infrastructure. They are the physical layer where everything Cisco builds becomes real to the people who use it every day. An employee never sees the switch fabric or the security architecture. They see the room. They join the meeting. They experience the network through a device on the wall or on the desk.
That is why this business is growing more than 30 percent year to date, and why every major analyst has recognized Cisco as the number one provider of intelligent workplace devices, at nearly double the size of our closest competitor. The market has decided that the workplace matters, and it has decided who leads it.
The objections are history
For years, some of you carried a hard conversation into customer meetings: what if the customer runs Microsoft Teams or Zoom? That conversation is over.
Cisco devices are an open platform. We recently announced native Zoom meeting support and Zoom Rooms on Cisco devices. Our Microsoft partnership is now four years strong, and we are the fastest growing Microsoft Teams Rooms partner. Our new AI-powered devices are certified on the Microsoft Device Ecosystem Platform, which means customers get Cisco’s security architecture layered on top of Microsoft’s. Customers can standardize on Cisco devices across their entire environment, whatever meeting platform they run, and know the investment is protected.
What this means for your business
One of our largest video device partners deploys in more than 100 countries and manages tens of thousands of rooms. Here is what they told me at Cisco Live: When you deploy standardized, interoperable systems with native user experiences, adoption happens early and friction disappears. Within 90 days, their customer conversations shift from fixing rooms to expanding experiences: new features, monthly software updates, capabilities deployed at scale.
That shift is the profitability story. Workplace experience is a practice. Devices give you a recurring, high-value motion built on top of every network your customer modernizes, and it is a motion where Cisco’s platform holds real value in a market where others race to the bottom.
Watch the conversation: I sat down at Cisco Live with our devices leader and one of our top video partners to talk about the opportunity in front of us.
The opportunity in front of us
There are roughly 80 million conference rooms in the world. Most of them are not intelligent yet. Every campus modernization project your customers undertake is an invitation to change that, and tools like Workplace Designer let you show a customer their future workplace and deploy it fast.
So here is my ask. Put devices in every campus conversation. When your customer modernizes the network, show them what that network makes possible in the rooms where their people actually work. Lead with the network, bring the workplace, and bring us with you.
The network supercycle is here. The workplace is where your customers will feel it. Let’s go build it together.
