Cisco Collaboration Doubles Down on Software and the Cloud, Making Video Collaboration More Cost-Effective While Ushering in New Era of B2B Video

Software advancements enable customers to reach up to 70 percent greater efficiencies from their existing collaboration infrastructure

SAN JOSE, Calif., March 19, 2013 – Cisco today announced innovations that combine the power of software with the intelligence of the network to drive video collaboration in the enterprise. The software innovations give customers new ways to manage and cost-effectively scale video and increase business-to-business (B2B) communications.

ANNOUNCEMENT HIGHLIGHTS

• Breakthrough software advancements help make collaboration more cost-effective: Cisco is introducing software that recognizes the type and amount of resources (i.e., ports, bandwidth, infrastructure) needed to support a meeting based on the endpoints used, and adjusts automatically. This can help customers get up to 70 percent greater usage of their existing collaboration infrastructure and help scale video in a more cost- effective manner, without impacting the user experience.
• Cisco TelePresence® and Cisco WebEx® developments advance B2B collaboration for millions: Cisco is using software to integrate two market-leading platforms in a way that was previously not possible, providing many users with immediate differences in how they can collaborate. On-premises customers can now extend a meeting invitation to any user outside their organization, to participate in TelePresence and WebEx® meetings via their browser. This new capability extends the reach of TelePresence meetings to external users through a single WebEx link, providing new options for B2B communications in the enterprise. Additionally, through a single interface users can now schedule a combined TelePresence and WebEx meeting and share video and content to any device, including third party video endpoints, mobile phones and tablets.
• Transparency into all video traffic on the network: Cisco is now giving IT managers exceptional transparency into video traffic on the network through new medianet advancements. Cisco TelePresence endpoints and Cisco Jabber™ clients[i] are now shipping with medianet software embedded. As part of the Cisco® medianet architecture, this software automatically synchs endpoints with the network. Additionally, new medianet features enable the network to monitor video traffic from all endpoints, find potential bandwidth or quality issues, and make adjustments to ensure critical video meetings go off without a hitch.
• Expanding cloud video-as-a-service options for partners: Many of Cisco’s infrastructure advancements can be utilized by cloud collaboration partners to enhance service offerings. For instance, these partners can now deliver different consumption models that enable users to hold highly secure high quality video meetings without reservations by simply dialing a number and entering an access code. Users can join from a variety of networks and endpoints, from Jabber desktop video clients to standalone telepresence endpoints and immersive room systems.

This announcement comes as IT managers and network operators are looking for the most efficient ways to deploy video on their networks. In fact, according to Cisco’s most recent Visual Networking Index, enterprise desktop videoconferencing globally is expected to grow from 36.4 million users in 2011 to 218.9 million users by 2016. These new software innovations from Cisco give organizations the tools needed to easily and cost-effectively scale video across their networks, while delivering a unified collaboration experience for users from any device and any collaboration application, from Jabber® to WebEx to TelePresence.

ADDITIONAL DETAILS

Breakthrough software advancements help make collaboration more cost-effective:

• Increasing network intelligence for optimal collaboration: New software, embedded into Cisco’s collaboration infrastructure, including Cisco TelePresence Server and TelePresence Conductor, allows the network to customize how it delivers valuable conferencing resources such as network bandwidth, infrastructure, and video and audio ports for each meeting.
  • The network can set aside the precise amount of resources to support both high-definition video to an immersive TelePresence endpoint and standard-definition video to a fixed or mobile endpoint.
  • These new capabilities can be extended not only to Cisco’s endpoints but also to any standards-compliant video endpoint, from hardware endpoints to software clients, to provide interoperability and increase the value of current and future video investments.
  • These software advancements, which are globally available today, enable customers to use their existing collaboration infrastructure more efficiently, without impacting the user experience.

TelePresence and WebEx developments advance B2B collaboration for millions:

• New software innovations are creating a new unified conferencing experience between TelePresence and WebEx that gives users more capabilities and control.
  • Video Sharing: In a combined WebEx and TelePresence conference, users will now be able to see video from everyone in the meeting, whether they are joining from a TelePresence endpoint or another standards-based video endpoint, or a WebEx client on a PC or mobile device.
  • Content Sharing: Sharing content is a snap. Any user can easily share content from a PC or TelePresence endpoint. The software automatically delivers that data to all meeting participants, whether they are on TelePresence or WebEx on laptops or other mobile clients.
  • Scheduling: New features enable users to easily schedule a combined meeting through calendaring tools such as Microsoft Outlook or a browser-based application. The organizer creates one calendar invitation for all conferencing endpoints (i.e., TelePresence, WebEx, Jabber, or personal video endpoints).   The network then automatically reserves the needed conferencing resources for the meeting.
• These new features also enable customers to further B2B collaboration by extending conferencing capabilities outside their organization, to third parties including partners, suppliers and customers at no additional cost. The new integrated scheduler enables customers to invite any external user to a combined TelePresence and WebEx meeting simply by sending them a URL to join directly from their browser. These new capabilities are targeted for global availability in 1H CY13.

Transparency into all video traffic on the network:

• Support for new endpoints: Cisco is introducing support for more Cisco collaboration endpoints and infrastructure as part of its medianet architecture. In addition to Cisco WebEx Meetings and Cisco WebEx Meeting Center offerings, TelePresence and Jabber endpoints clients on Windows PCs are now also medianet-enabled.
• Prioritizing and managing video: New medianet features allow the network to automatically identify and prioritize video across the network, by gathering detailed information about each meeting’s end users, the type of endpoint they are using and the type of content they are sharing.
  • Now, IT managers can configure the network to consistently deliver video to top executives or power users at the highest network priority.
  • This detailed network visibility down to the endpoint and user simplifies troubleshooting and can reduce video quality or service issues.
  • In addition, these network features allow customers to increase their overall amount of useable bandwidth by improving delivery of video over any available network links.
  • These new media monitoring and metadata capabilities, scheduled for global availability March 2013, will help ensure the smoothest possible meeting experience, by adapting to urgent network issues such as bandwidth congestion or interruptions in video traffic.
• Making the core network smarter: Cisco medianet features will also be enabled on the Cisco Catalyst® 6500 Supervisor Engine 2T and the ASR 9000 series, with global availability targeted for March 2013. This advancement will make the core network smarter and able to recognize all types of collaboration traffic down to the details of audio, data and video streams.

Supporting Quotes

Rowan Trollope, senior vice president and general manager, Cisco Collaboration

“Our customers are demanding technology that enables employees to work their way, connecting with video inside and outside of their organization. Building on our market-leading hardware and software collaboration solutions, today we’re introducing software innovations to help our users scale their hardware endpoints and bring video to more users. We’re also driving better B2B collaboration by providing a single integrated experience for users to visually connect with anyone, on any device, inside or outside of their organization.”

Gabriele Chiesa, manager, Telecommunication Architecture & Development, eni

“As the largest industrial company in Italy, eni leads oil and gas operations in over 70 countries. Video is critical to helping our employees collaborate and manage these mining and distribution practices globally. We believe the simplified TelePresence and WebEx experience will help us easily extend important meetings outside of our organization to our large community of partners and suppliers. We can improve our B2B communications by scaling our meetings to any user, to participate from their endpoint of choice including a video endpoint, PC, mobile phone or tablet.”

Gary Reynolds, network manager, DLA Piper LLP

“As a global law firm, DLA Piper uses video across all offices to help our attorneys better serve their clients. A flawless video experience is a critical part of these meetings.  We use Cisco’s medianet features to enable the network to automatically monitor DLA Piper’s large install base of Telepresence, video and collaboration endpoints. Medianet allows us to easily manage traffic on the network by helping identify and troubleshoot potential network issues that may be impacting users and optimize network capabilities such as QoS.”

Will Bordeau, IT administrator, Boxwood Technology, Inc.

“As an online career services company, ensuring our employees have access to reliable phone service cannot be overstated enough.  After hosting our IP-PBX in a data center, we needed a way to closely monitor network performance to provide the best possible user experience for collaboration with our customers. Cisco’s medianet capabilities, along with the LiveAction network management solution by ActionPacked! Networks, gave us tools to immediately detect bandwidth congestion, isolate the source of potential issues, and resolve issues within minutes. For the first time, we were able to see an exhaustive, end-to-end view of our network.”

Andy Dignan, director, Collaboration Solutions, CDW

“CDW uses video every day to collaborate with our customers and provide crucial technical support. Cisco’s new software allows us to easily and economically scale video to more users – simply put, we’re able to do more with our current network. By using our existing IT investment more efficiently, we can support more meetings from mobile clients, to immersive TelePresence. Today’s announcements from Cisco further enable us to help our customers deploy collaboration and video to their end users. This software-based approach extends B2B collaboration opportunities for our customers, allowing them to quickly connect to users outside of their organization in a single meeting.”

Additional Resources:

• Join Cisco Collaboration leaders online as they share a strategy update and demonstrations of these new solutions in the Cisco Collaboration Announcements Webcast on March 19 from 9 to 9:30 a.m. PT (replay available at 1 pm PT).
• Read perspectives on these announcements through blogs by Cisco leaders on the Cisco Collaboration Blog and The Platform Blog.
• Find more information:
  • Cisco Pervasive Conferencing
  • Cisco medianet

• Hear the latest news and engage with Cisco and your peers daily through the Cisco Collaboration Community, @CiscoCollab on Twitter, and Cisco Collaboration on Facebook..

Technorati Tags: Cisco, collaboration, medianet, TelePresence, WebEx, Jabber, mobility, video, conferencing, HCS, cloud, AT&T, cloud collaboration, infrastructure

About Cisco Collaboration

From award-winning IP communications to mobility, customer care, Web conferencing, messaging, enterprise social software, and interoperable telepresence experiences, Cisco brings together network-based, integrated collaboration solutions based on open standards. These solutions offered across on-premise, cloud-based or virtualized platforms, as well as services from Cisco and our partners, are designed to help promote business growth, innovation and productivity. They are also designed to help accelerate team performance, protect investments, and simplify the process of finding the right people and information.

About Cisco

Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO, news, filings) is the worldwide leader in IT that helps companies seize the opportunities of tomorrow by proving that amazing things can happen when you connect the previously unconnected. For ongoing news, please go to http://thenetwork.cisco.com.

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Availability Disclaimer: Many of the products and features described herein remain in varying stages of development and will be offered on a when-and-if-available basis. This products and features are subject to change at the sole discretion of Cisco, and Cisco will have no liability for delay in the delivery or failure to deliver any of the products or features set forth in this document.

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