Cisco Transforms Cloud Calling and Huddle Spaces

MIAMI and LAS VEGAS, Nov. 13, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Whether you need to make a simple phone call or communicate, share and co-create across time zones to make that deadline, Cisco® collaboration provides the cloud services and products you need. And we do it in a way that your IT team can scale, and your company can afford. To help you get great work done, today we’re announcing major innovations in cloud calling and team collaboration.   

Cloud Calling: Bringing the best to you through service providers.
Companies want to move their phone calls to the cloud, but not at the expense of call clarity and features.

Cisco has long been the leader in the UC market when it comes to on-premise and hybrid models. And as noted by Synergy Research, our acquisition of BroadSoft made us a leader in cloud, too. We want to help IT leaders decide if moving to the cloud is right for them—and if it is, we want to help them do it with confidence.

To that end, here is what we are announcing:   

• Webex Teams now has a full PBX. It’s UC on steroids, available through service providers.
  Cisco BroadCloud™ Calling is a phone system in the cloud. It has all the benefits of a traditional enterprise PBX without the hassles. Today we’re announcing it is now available with Cisco Webex™ Teams through service providers. Think of it as “UC on steroids”—world-class calling, meetings and team collaboration from one of the most trusted names in the business. We built it to address the needs of companies with 100 or more employees.
   
• We’re adding BroadCloud Calling to the Flex Plan—and it is available through service providers.
  Buying should be simple and with the Cisco Collaboration Flex® Plan, it is. It lets companies pay a simple subscription fee for all the collaboration tools they need. They can choose to deploy on-premise, in the cloud, or mix and match— and change their mind on that mix at any time. Today, we are adding Cisco BroadCloud Calling as a new calling option in the plan. Service providers can now create a complete collaboration solution to help midsize businesses and enterprises move to the cloud faster. Initially available through six service providers in the US (including NWN and Orange), it will be expanding to support global locations across 19 countries in 2018, with continued expansion continuing through 2019 and beyond.* They provide customers the network services and deliver the collaboration tools in one simple package.  
• We’re delivering a new calling app that service providers and their customers will love.
  The Cisco Calling App has all the features you expect—like mute, park, transfer and click to dial—plus some extras that set it apart from the pack. For instance, want to do high definition video calls? The app can do that. Or want to make a business call from your mobile device using the cellular data network while displaying your published business phone number? The app can do that, too. And it’s integrated with your Outlook and enterprise directory, making it easy to find colleagues through simple search. Service providers who sell BroadCloud Calling while using the Flex Plan can private-label the app. 
   
• Easy to buy, easy to pay.
  Today we make it simpler for service providers to bundle all calling and collaboration applications (like Webex™ Meetings), devices, and network services into one easy-to-order package—with one streamlined bill.

Team collaboration: We’re making the huddle space so great you may never want to leave it.
These days, cubicles are “out” and open workspaces are “in”. That means workers often seek out so-called huddle spaces to work with their small teams. About 25 million huddle spaces exist today**—and that number keeps growing.

These smaller spaces provide a great place to meet, but they often lack great technology. Want to whiteboard, share your draft of that big presentation, maybe ask your remote colleague for her feedback? Good luck. Most huddle spaces are ill-equipped for such tasks. Want a consistent experience in the huddle space, the conference room, and on your mobile device? Unlikely. It’s no wonder that nearly four out of five workers say they are frustrated.

At Cisco, we want to change that. We want you to have the technology you need to share content, communicate clearly, and co-create. We want IT to be able to deploy, manage and scale these spaces with ease. And we want your company to be able to afford to make these spaces great—whether you need a handful or thousands of them. And we want you to have a consistent experience.

Here’s how we are doing just that.

• If you need a space where a team of up to five people can meet with remote colleagues and share content, the brand-new Webex Room Kit Mini™ might be the perfect choice. It is custom-made for smaller spaces but is packed with incredible AI, cameras and microphones for an experience like the one you get with our bigger systems. It “wakes up” when you enter the room. It fine-tunes the video so everyone in the space can be seen by people on the far end. If you have a huddle space where people mainly want to whiteboard and co-create, the Webex Board 55™ is the solution. It is newly enhanced with features teams asked for—like pinch and zoom.
• Tired of standing over someone’s shoulder to see what’s on their laptop screen? Webex Share™ can help with that. It’s a palm-sized adapter that works with Webex Meetings and Webex Teams to turn any TV or screen into a presentation device.  No dongles or cables needed—just one click and you’re sharing.
• Do we really need more huddle spaces on the third floor? And if so, would it make sense to turn that large conference room into several huddle spaces? Which spaces are the most popular in Sydney? Our AI and analytics can answer such questions—giving you the data you need to make good decisions. In fact, we’re the only vendor to do this natively. This is key for real estate executives, who until today had no easy way to get such data. Now they will be able to meet user’s needs and drive efficiency in real estate costs. At the same time, our diagnostics give IT rich detail that will help them troubleshoot and manage with ease. And with Cisco huddle spaces, there are far fewer management points—only one for every three you’d have with other vendor solutions. Other vendors give you 66 percent more hassle and headache.

  To learn more about our huddle space news, read the blog here.

“Whether you’re placing a call or huddling with your team, it’s our mission to give you the most secure, reliable and awesome collaboration tools to get the job done,” said Amy Chang, SVP and GM, Collaboration Technology Group, Cisco. “The service provider channel gives us an incredible opportunity to get these tools to more teams, and I can’t wait to see what we’ll accomplish together.” 

Additional Resources
Read SVP Amy Chang’s blog on this announcement here.
For more detail about our huddle space news, read the blog here.
To learn more about our cloud calling news, read the blog here.

Partner Quotes:
Orange, Sam Nchinda, VP Orange Solutions Americas 
“Orange is delighted to continue to partner with Cisco in the growing mid-market and large enterprise Collaboration market segment. We like the simplicity of the Cisco Collaboration Flex Plan subscription model. It allows us to offer one package that includes all the essential communications ingredients needed by these enterprises. Our customers no longer want to deal with the complexity and costs of on-premises technology, and many are ready to move their technology to the cloud. We now have an opportunity to help them through this transition, while providing them with the financial and business advantages of the Cisco leading edge solution set.” 

WWT, Joe Berger, Practice Director
“As we talk with customers, more and more they are asking for ways to enable their employees to be more productive in different types of spaces. What we (WWT) love about the Cisco Huddle room portfolio is that it enables businesses to use these spaces more effectively. The Room Kit Mini will enable all of those smaller rooms to leverage audio, video calling and content sharing while providing the same joining experience many customers are used to in the larger meeting rooms. The Webex Share gets rid of multiple cables and dongles found in most rooms and allows for easy wireless content sharing, plus the ability to schedule and manage those spaces. Not to be overlooked, Cisco’s expanded portfolio now allows Facilities and IT to measure Huddle space utilization. Because these devices are managed by the same tools as the larger rooms, Facilities can more accurately determine ROI and IT/HR get insight into employee behaviors.”

*   subject to channel partner availability
** Recon Research 2018

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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. These 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.