Day: June 3, 2014

Why Should Enterprises Pay for UC?

by Gary Barton, posted in Communicate
Gary Barton
Gary Barton

Summary Bullets:

  • Enterprises should look beyond quality of service factors to the broader working practices guidance available with the new generations of unified communications and collaboration services.
  • New features such as WebRTC can only successfully be delivered as part of an advanced UC suite, but will deliver a genuine competitive advantage.

When enterprises can use Skype as an internal messaging and conference service for free, is it any surprise that they question why they should pay for Microsoft Lync or Cisco HCS-based services?Apps such as ‘What’s App’ essentially offer unified messaging, whilst almost every tablet now comes with some kind of video chat software. What’s more, consumer apps are developed and released much more quickly than business grade apps. When being cutting edge matters, why not go with the most agile source of new technology? The quality of service argument still holds strong and enterprises should bear in mind that most UC solutions are provided with a 99.9% availability guarantee as a standard. The advent of HD voice is another factor that enterprises should consider. HD voice offers a genuinely enhanced end user experience and is often not available on consumer grade solutions – especially if they are free.   Continue reading “Why Should Enterprises Pay for UC?” →

Cisco APJC Collaboration: A Step Towards Pervasive Enterprise Collaboration

by , posted in Network
Harish Taori
Harish Taori

Summary Bullets:

  • Launching its innovative DX80 / DX70 endpoints and collaboration meeting room (CMR) solution, Cisco makes an attempt to plug the gaps in its collaboration offering for enterprises.
  • However, Cisco needs to improve its value proposition by making the solution easy to acquire, consume and manage in a heterogeneous IT environment to address persistent TCO concerns.

It was a bright sunny day when I landed in Macau to attend Cisco’s APJC collaboration summit last week. The summit started with two major announcements – launch of collaboration endpoints DX80/70 and the collaboration meeting room (CMR) solution – both part of Cisco’s “Browser to Boardroom” theme. The former was an attempt to consolidate the number of communication/collaboration devices present on a work desk in one endpoint while the latter (CMR) was a software solution that caught my attention due to its broader appeal to the enterprises. Continue reading “Cisco APJC Collaboration: A Step Towards Pervasive Enterprise Collaboration” →