There’s a lot of talk about the post-PC era, but the reality is many Canadian organizations are still managing a huge fleet of desktops and have not truly taken advantage of the opportunities in this mobile-driven computing stack.
At Cisco, the shift toward Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) has brought a multitude of new devices, operating systems and architectures to the corporate world. But the biggest and most meaningful change these tablets, laptops and smartphones could have on your business is the complete transformation of the way your employees collaborate.
New tablets and smartphones launch just about every month – a trend that continues to push the bar higher and higher for mobile apps and HD video capabilities. But just allowing iPhone or Android-based devices into your business isn’t enough. Collaboration software and services need to fill in some key gaps.
Over the last few weeks, we have made a strong push to do this for businesses of all sizes, unveiling a plethora of upgraded products and services in our collaboration solution portfolio. All of our technology announcements aim to take collaboration mobile and beyond the desktop.
With our updated Cisco WebEx, users will now be able to engage in high-quality video meetings from their Cisco Cius, Apple iPhone and Apple iPad devices. WebEx users will also be able to access files and presentations in the cloud from their PC or mobile devices. The ability for users to connect to Cisco TelePresence meetings from their tablet or smartphone, means employees will finally have enterprise-grade collaboration away from the confines of their office. If you haven’t tried the Cius with built-in TelePresence yet, this video may change your mind.
We also upgraded our Jabber platform, adding a plug-in that gives users TelePresence capabilities on Apple, BlackBerry, Android, Nokia and Windows products.
For employees working from home, on the road or in a branch office, our WAAS offering has been optimized for Citrix XenDesktop and HDX technology to help deliver virtual desktop and apps to mobile devices faster and with less bandwidth than ever before. As collaboration tools rely more on HD video, rich media and voice, building out a strong IT infrastructure to do the heavy lifting is crucial to delivering media-rich content to tablets and smartphones.
Making it easier to communicate via video to your employees’ mobile devices, we also announced technology that will be particularly exciting for Canada’s crop of small and medium-sized businesses.
To mark the fifth anniversary of our landmark Cisco TelePresence product portfolio, we also released the Cisco TelePresence MX300, an affordable nine-person TelePresence system that can be set up in about 15 minutes. We’ve also upped the BYOD ante and integrated TelePresence with Cisco Jabber to allow users to join TelePresence calls from their desktop PCs, laptops and tablets.
In our dedication to provide professional solutions that enable BYOD and scale to small businesses, we also released upgrades to two IP telephony platforms in our Unified Communications portfolio. The Cisco Business Edition 3000 and Cisco Business Edition 6000 bring video, instant messaging and presence to mid-size businesses still using aging public branch exchange (PBX) systems. Seamless integration with Cisco Jabber for instant messaging and presence rounds out the new features.
While these products updates were the highlights, they are just a sampling of Cisco’s recent activity in the collaboration space. To dive deeper into our latest collaboration portfolio and check out new videos and technical briefings on key collaboration technologies, please visit the Cisco Collaboration Virtual Launch Experience site.
With the move to BYOD becoming a reality for businesses of all sizes, you need technology solutions that make it simple and secure for your employees collaborate and access the information they need on the device they want. For IT managers, opening up your environment to strange new devices might seem like a scary experience, but at Cisco we can help usher you into the era of BYOD worry-free. Besides, as the saying goes “you never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”
Utilizing the power of new endpoint devices to connect your employees together like never before can empower your business to become more mobile, social, visual and virtual.
Embrace the post-PC era!
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