Q&A: Marthin De Beer, Cisco's VP/GM of IP Communications, Discusses Benefits of New Wireless and Desktop IP Phones

April 29, 2003

Cisco Systems recently introduced three new Internet Protocol (IP) telephones - the Cisco Wireless IP Phone 7920, the Cisco IP Phone 7912G, and the Cisco IP Phone 7902G - as well as new enhancements to IP-based hardware and software. Together, these new products and enhancements extend the reach and benefits of Cisco's IP communications system to a wider range of users in both small and large organizations.

News@Cisco asked Marthin De Beer to discuss how these new products fit into Cisco's overall IP communications portfolio and the benefits they provide to customers.

Can you tell us a little about the new phones Cisco is announcing?

Marthin De Beer: We're introducing three new phones. Two of these, the 7912G and the 7902G, extend the productivity benefits of our IP communications solutions to a broader range of users, particularly in smaller businesses or branch offices. In conjunction with our existing 7905G, they comprise the entry-level phones in our portfolio -- offering basic IP phone capabilities, for our product range.

The third phone, the 7920, is an 802.11b wireless IP phone that brings all the telephony features and capabilities of our wired phones to a mobile device for the campus network. It's targeted at users who need to be mobile but also must have constant, reliable, real-time communication as they move around the campus. These phones are targeted at highly mobile employees, such as workers in medical, retail and warehousing.

All three phones are the result of Cisco's continuing efforts to deliver the increased reach of IP communications to more users. They enhance productivity and allow greater mobility in the workplace.

Wireless campus phones aren't entirely new, so what value is the 7920 bringing to the market?

Marthin De Beer: Traditionally, wireless PBX handsets had limited capabilities, and required a wireless network dedicated to the phone.

Our new 7920 leverages the 802.11b wireless network, which can also be used for data clients, and provides comprehensive voice communications in conjunction with Cisco CallManager and Cisco Aironet 802.11b access points. And our access points have wireless QoS capabilities to ensure a great user experience.

Offering the 7920 enables us to give our customers the best possible user experience with an end-to-end solution. Enterprises that incorporate the 7920 into their existing Cisco IP communications infrastructure know they'll be getting seamless integration and support.

What about the 7902G and 7912G and IP telephones - what's new about these models?

Marthin De Beer: As I mentioned earlier, these are our entry-level phones. They complete a robust product portfolio and are extremely price competitive with traditional digital PBX phone sets.

The 7902G and 7912G extend the reach of our IP solutions to small and medium businesses and offices as well as to more users within larger campuses. What this means to our customers is that they can afford to offer the benefits of IP communications, such as mobility and increased productivity, to more employees.

With these new products, Cisco offers the broadest range of IP phones in the industry.

What else are you announcing?

Marthin De Beer: We've also announced a number of enhancements to IP-based hardware and software products in our IP communications portfolio. Enhanced products include the Cisco Catalyst® 4500 Series Access Gateway Module (AGM), Cisco CallManager Attendant Console 1.2, Cisco IPVC Gateway 2.0, Cisco Survivable Remote Site Telephony (SRST) 3.0, and the Cisco Media Convergence Servers 7800 Series.

These enhancements improve mobility and end-user productivity, as well as business resiliency.

Can you elaborate on how these products and enhancements help an enterprise's resilience?

Marthin De Beer: By resilience, we mean ensuring that customers' business systems are less susceptible to unexpected events -- such as power outages or equipment failures, for example. Our solutions offer redundancy, auto configuration, management, and similar capabilities, which allow customers to build resilient business communications systems, which reduce or eliminate the likelihood of costly downtime.

For example, Cisco Survivable Remote Site Telephony (SRST) is a unique industry product that enables users in remote offices to have cost-effective, transparent access to IP communications services at a central location, with seamless failover to basic telephony services in the event of WAN link failure.

What feedback are you getting from customers about these new products?

Marthin De Beer: Customer response has been great.

For example, the 7920 IP phone is proving extremely beneficial to Trimble, a leading innovator of global positioning system technology. Trimble has empowered its people to be very mobile, and with the 7920, these workers still get the full feature set of their desktop phones no matter where they need to be. The company reports that the 7920 works far better than other technologies it has tried in the past, including pagers, cell phones, and walkie-talkies.