Late Summer 2020 News
The days are getting shorter, the leaves are starting to change color. While “back to school season” is generally when vendors get in gear with new products and announcements, the end of summer has seen a good bit of activity.
Cisco WebEx
A Level Playing Field – In the Cloud Communications World, Differentiators Do Not Last
Last month, as part of the EC20 Virtual event, Brent Kelly and I did an extensive analysis of Cisco Webex, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom. It was a comprehensive review of the overall solutions, considered from a range of areas over two hours.
One part of the analysis was examining the in-meeting noise reduction of each vendor. As we have all seen as we have moved to online all the time, background noise can become an irritant. And with many new video and meeting participants not aware of muting, it can actually impede the meetings.
Is Now the Time to Consider a Cloud Communications Migration?
There is no time like a crisis to consider the future. Unfortunately, the Coronavirus pandemic has been a wake-up call for the importance of the cloud in support of, or as a replacement for, on-premises communications and customer service systems. The explosion in cloud-based meetings and collaboration services over the past two months catapulted all of us at once into a future that is more cloud-dependent for connecting and conducting business. Across the globe, meetings and collaboration usage has exploded. Usage of Cisco’s Webex Meetings Platform has surged 24 times.
In this Industry Buzz podcast, the BCStrategies Experts who attended the Cisco Collaboration Analyst Summit get together to discuss the event.
As the lights Dim on Skype for Business Teamline Protects Meeting Room Investments with New Agnostic Solution
Teamline, the leading provider of enterprise meeting room solutions built for, and tightly integrated with Microsoft UC, announces MultiJoin, a major innovation that transforms any Teamline equipped meeting room into a platform-agnostic collaboration space. This gives users a direct and easy way to join Microsoft Teams, Skype for Business, Cisco Webex, Zoom, BlueJeans and StarLeaf meetings.
Cisco and Apple Announce Business Communications Partnership
Cisco and Apple have announced a new partnership, wherein they'll create a "fast lane" for iOS business users. The partnership aims to turn the iPhone into a greater business communications and collaboration tool, by providing a more efficient network and performance, and a seamless experience between the user's iPhone and desk phone.
What's Next after AIM PIC Federation is Gone?
In 2007, AOL introduced a SIP Gateway for Public IM Connectivity (PIC) federation between AIM, IBM Sametime and Microsoft OCS 2007. Before being acquired by Cisco, WebEx Connect also offered AIM chat using the same gateway. This allowed companies to use the AIM service as a way to establish federation between their Microsoft OCS 2007 or IBM Sametime systems to Cisco WebEx.
New Collaborative Endpoint from Cisco
Cisco has a new endpoint. On display at Enterprise Connect 2013 was the Cisco DX650. It's the first endpoint representing the new family of DX600 series of devices optimized for a "Desktop Collaboration Experience." The device on display was the DX650.
Cisco Showcases Growth in Cloud Collaboration and Announces New Collaboration Capabilities and Services for Enterprises, Service Providers and Partners
At its Collaboration Summit Cisco unveiled enhancements to its collaboration portfolio by: (1) bringing into its Hosted Collaboration Service (HCS) both TelePresence bridging and many of the capabilities of Cisco Unified Communications Release 9.0; and (2) extending Cisco WebEx to the P