Cisco launches new unified communications products at VoiceCon 8 March, 2007 By Chris Talbot

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The new additions to Cisco's unified communications portfolio continue to change how people communicate while also impacting the workflow and business transformation aspects of how business operate, said Richard McLeod, direct of unified communications for worldwide channels at Cisco Systems.

"Our strategy continues as we continue to enhance our product line," he said.

The new product announcement fall under three common themes -- mobility, the mid-sized market and collaborationn.

According to McLeod, when Cisco executives talk about extending unified communications to mobile employees, they're talking about three domains -- wired environments, wireless environments and the extension to cellular devices for wide area mobility. The big announcement for Cisco around mobility is the launch of the Cisco Unified Mobile Communicator, which provides users with access to their unified communications features from mobile phones through a graphical interface.

The product offers end-users the ability to view voicemail messages and select messages from a list for individual playback. It also enables them to see presence status for their contacts through their mobile devices, as well as the ability to access enterprise directories, send secure text messages and query call logs. Additionally, Cisco Unified Mobile Communicator offers single number capabilities so that when someone calls an employee's desk, their mobile phone will ring simultaneously.

"Bringing the full power of unified communications to mobile employees is quite significant," McLeod said.

Built using technology Cisco acquired when it purchased Orative, Unified Mobile Communicator was designed to be used on just about any type of cellular network (including GSM and CDMA), using any mobile operating system and with just about any carrier around the world, McLeod said.

"What we've done here is to create a common user experience across a wide variety of mobile user handsets," he said.

For the mid-market, Cisco has continued to push downwards to target smaller and smaller mid-sized businesses. The new Unified Communications Manager Business Edition is priced to be attractive to companies with between 100 and 500 employees.

"What this pulls together is literally a complete suite of communications applications on a single server platform," McLeod said.

It integrates voice, video, mobility, presence and messaging on a single platform instead of Cisco's traditional three-server configuration. Early trials suggest it deploys 30 per cent faster than the three-server approach, and the price points are about 20 to 25 per cent lower than the three-server configuration.

"It's makes for the partner a very easy to support, easy to deploy solution," McLeod said.

Built into Unified Communications Manager Business Edition is Unity Connection 2.0. This newest version of Unity Connection provides customers with a greater ability to network multiple devices and multiple voicemail systems. The networking vendor has shifted the product to a Linux-based environment, so it also comes with increased security, McLeod said.

"We have the same OS tools and platforms as the Communications Manager, and we have a single set of credentials and single sign-on, so it's very easy for our customers as well as our partners," McLeod said.

It includes enhanced speech recognition technology that allows the end-user to use voice commands, such as pause, resume, skip, speed up, slow down, list meetings and attend a MeetingPlace session, amongst others, he said.

"It's very, very powerful for road warriors when they're driving down the highway," McLeod said.

Cisco also announced enhancements to its Unified Personal Communicator, as well as to the Express and Enterprise versions of its contact center application.

As a whole, it's a complete package for service, support, financing, marketing tools, sales enablement tools and service enablement tools, McLeod said.

"We're really introducing a complete solution here. This is a whole offer from a partner's perspective," he said.