MIAMI, Fla., November 16, 2011 – At the Cisco® Collaboration Summit 2011 event, Cisco today unveiled new solutions to help people collaborate more effectively in the "post-PC" era. This era moves past the limitations of "PC centric" communication and instead evokes a "people centric" approach where people can collaborate anywhere, anytime and on any device or application. The advancements Cisco is introducing today --from Cisco WebEx®  to Cisco Jabber™ -- can change how people meet utilizing expanded cloud-based services, and can give workers an easy way to collaborate directly from Web applications they use every day, driving new levels of business productivity and competitiveness.

With today's announcement, Cisco is unveiling the next generation of Cisco WebEx. From HD video advancements and enhanced mobile capabilities that enable all new ways to prepare, meet and follow-up after a meeting, Cisco WebEx is helping to change the meeting experience. Additionally, Cisco is extending cloud conferencing to more people with a new free basic edition of WebEx® designed for three people or less.

Cisco is also transforming the workspace by dramatically changing how people collaborate from Web applications they use every day, like SAP Streamwork, Cisco Quad™ or Google Apps. Today, whether mobile or at their desks, people find themselves having to open and utilize a variety of collaboration applications just to communicate on their own terms– whether that's via instant message (IM), voice, or video. Cisco is making collaboration much easier by advancing Cisco Jabber with a freely downloadable Web browser plug-in that will help extend collaboration to tens of millions of people that use web browsers on Windows- or Mac-based OS devices.

With these innovations and recent announcements around virtualization and unified communications, Cisco is continuing to transform the workspace. Additionally, with WebEx and the recently announced Cisco TelePresence® solutions for small and medium sized businesses, Cisco is advancing its cloud-based offerings through the Cisco Collaboration cloud.

Announcement Highlights

Cisco WebEx

• Enabling greater cross company collaboration: Cisco's advanced WebEx Meetings spaces help users manage the complete meeting lifecycle. Individuals can:
  • easily access and collaborate on files and presentations in the cloud from their PC or mobile device in real time at any time.
  • see whether their colleagues are available through presence and initiate synchronous conversations via IM to prepare, collaborate and follow up.
  • schedule meetings and share agendas, notes, action items, recordings and any other relevant documents at anytime.

In addition, IT Administrators can set policy controls providing users with a single identity across all Cisco WebEx SaaS offerings to meet corporate security guidelines.

• Enhancing the mobile meeting experience: WebEx enables users to engage in two-way high-quality video meetings on mobile devices with new support for the Cisco Cius™ tablet  and Apple iPhone on top of the currently supported Apple iPad. Voice over IP is now also available on the iPhone and iPad.
• Integrating offerings to propel collaboration: With Cisco's "one-button-to-push" technology, WebEx users can now easily connect into Cisco TelePresence meetings from the Cisco Cius and Apple mobile devices. Integrated experiences will also be provided with Cisco Jabber, Cisco Quad and technology for optimizing medianets. The solution supports a set of common application programming interfaces (APIs) that can easily integrate third party applications such as CRM offerings.
• Extending collaboration to more users via the Cisco Collaboration Cloud: With Cisco WebEx Basic Edition, Cisco will offer a free version of WebEx that supports up to three meeting participants and provides users with VoIP audio, standard video, IM, presence, desktop sharing and a 250 MB of storage. The Basic Edition is targeted for availability in the first quarter of 2012.
• Availability: The beta version of Cisco WebEx is scheduled to be available in December 2011 in English and is primarily targeted for the Americas and Europe. General availability is planned starting in the first quarter of 2012 and will be available in multiple languages including English, French, German, Spanish (Castilian and Latin American), and Brazilian Portuguese.

Cisco Jabber

• Making collaboration easier: The new Jabber® Web plug-in will enable companies and developers to take Web browsers on Internet-connected devices, and embed Cisco UC capabilities. As a result, users in a public cloud-based application or a line of business-based application can easily find a co-worker using presence, communicate using IM and then click-to-call or click-to-video to enable a rich, real-time collaboration experience.
• Enabling developers to "collaboration enable" Web applications: This new software developer kit (SDK) for Cisco Jabber allows developers to collaboration-enable Web applications. Application developers will be supported by the Jabber Developer Program. Within the Cisco Developer Network (CDN), this new portal and program provides developers with sample codes, instructional videos and an online community for asking technical questions and sharing best practices. To get started with the Jabber SDK, users can register here on the CDN.
• Availability: The Jabber SDK is now available for Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome and Safari browsers for Windows and Mac operating systems. For more information on the initial introduction to Jabber in March, click here.

Supporting Quotes

Zeus Kerravala, industry analyst, ZK Research: "With Cisco Jabber and the Jabber SDK, Cisco is extending collaboration beyond the Windows desktop to provide greater collaborative workspace options and flexibility. And with the introduction of the next generation of WebEx, Cisco continues to drive market transitions by helping users manage the meeting lifecycle in one work stream even while mobile. Cisco is the only vendor that can offer broad collaboration capabilities as a rich, mobile, virtual and now Web-based end user experience."

Davide Petramala, vice president, Sales and Business Development, Esnatech: "The market for cloud-based business applications is growing rapidly. At Esnatech, we see tremendous demand to enhance Web applications, like Google Apps and Gmail, by integrating communications directly into the user experience. The Cisco Jabber SDK removes all roadblocks and allows us to transform Google apps and the Google framework into a live communication and collaboration for Cisco's enterprise customers."

Riann Kruger, vice president, Infrastructure and Operations, Corinthian Colleges:  "I can see the whole collaboration stream coming together in the new WebEx meeting spaces and integration with chat and the other features of Cisco Jabber. The more fluent the work streams the better, especially for busy executives."

Greg Smith, vice president of sales, enterprise solutions at Datavox, a Houston-based Cisco Gold Certified Partner: "As part of Cisco's collaboration architecture, Jabber and WebEx are vital elements that expand the ways that people can collaborate to drive business decisions and results faster. We view the new integration of Jabber into line of business applications as a key differentiator, and WebEx continues to be an important part of adjacent sales of collaboration. The more critical the need for effective collaboration becomes, the more customers see possible benefits in other areas of their business. As they understand the value, opportunities emerge for Datavox as a channel partner to explore more and larger use cases for these collaboration applications."

Warren Johnson, network systems administrator, Telvent DTN: "We want the users to be able to dole out access and rights to the content in meeting spaces, not centrally administrate.  I also expect this kind of file sharing to prevent inboxes from going over their limits due to seventeen copies of the same huge PPT being attached to emails."

Barry O'Sullivan, senior vice president and general manager, Collaboration and Communications Group, Cisco: "We've listened to our customers and significantly advanced Jabber and WebEx to enable seamless experiences on a range of devices and platforms, whether on premises or in the cloud. This approach further accelerates our strategic goal of enabling "any-to-any" collaboration while also making it easier than ever to collaborate with people inside or outside of an organization. In a post-PC era, businesses need ways to extend mobile, social, video and virtual collaboration on any mobile phone, tablet or Internet-connected device. We are bringing that to life today. "

Cisco will showcase these new offerings along with other collaboration innovations during a keynote presentation and demonstration on November 16 at the Cisco Collaboration Summit in Miami, Fla. Register  to view Senior Vice President Barry O'Sullivan's keynote live on that day from 9:00 to 10:30 am ET. For those unable to tune in live, a replay will also be available.

Supporting Resources:

• For more details about these announcements, visit the Cisco Collaboration Virtual Launch Experience.
• For more product details and information, visit the Cisco Jabber, Cisco WebEx and Cisco Mobile pages for more detail.
• Keep up with Cisco's news by visiting the company's Platform Blog.
• For more information about Cisco's collaboration news and activities visit the Collaboration Blog or follow us via Twitter @CiscoCollab.
• Cisco Capital offers a wide range of flexible financing services designed to streamline the acquisition of Cisco technology for customers and partners around the world.

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Tags / Keywords:

Cisco Unified Communications, collaboration, unified communications, presence, instant messaging, Voice over IP, VoIP, IP telephony, video, communication, productivity, IM, XMPP, telepresence, voice, mobile, Cisco WebEx Meeting Center, Cisco WebEx, WebEx, Cisco TelePresence, Enterprise Connect, Cisco Jabber, Jabber

 

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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, 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 Systems

Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Information about Cisco can be found at http://www.cisco.com. For ongoing news, please go to http://newsroom.cisco.com.

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Cisco and the Cisco logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. A listing of Cisco's trademarks can be found at www.cisco.com/go/trademarks. Third-party trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company.

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 roadmap is 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.

*HD video will is targeted for availability in the first calendar quarter of  2012.