May we have clarity on client release dates please

[bjames]

In watching all the video and reading some releases there are so many statements about the releases of the Unified Jabber clients. Some are saying the windows client is available now, in one press article it said the Mac client is available now.

May we please have release timelines for all the clients so we can plan accordingly.

Thanks in advance,

Bob James

Message was edited on April 19, 2013:  Lisa Marcyes from the Cisco Collaboration Community Team added community category and tags for greater ease in filtering (no change to content).

[skilambi]

Bob

See this post. I started this thread on this client. Here are some approximate dates for the Windows/Mac

https://communities.cisco.com/videos/7305#comment-6196

As far as Cisco Jabber for Nokia and Android that's April

https://communities.cisco.com/message/64676#64676

Srini

[bjames]

Thanks, I was hoping to have something tangible from Cisco as even their marketing managers seemed to be confused on the dates

Bob

[skilambi]

Ha! Even better are the sudden name changes. It was called Cisco Mobile and now I believe (if I am not mistaken) the name has changed to Cisco Jabber even for the mobile clients. At first I thought it was just the desktop IM/Presence client but now I see this name being used in conjunction with mobile clients

Srini

[mgervase]

Hi Bob and Srini,

Lots of good discussion here and legit questions.

As you both are aware, for legal reasons we are limited as to what we can discuss in public forums or in our Enterprise Connect videos.  While we would love to give you a definite timeline on the release dates for all the Jabber clients, the information that Zoltan and I have provided in these forums is about all we can say at this moment in time. Srini did a very helpful thing in capturing these links in his earlier post.

Bob, hopefully we have not confused anyone with our discussion of availability dates. However, let us know where we have created confusion and I'll be glad to work to clarify. We certainly work to be clear in our communications but it is helpful to have feedback from our customers when we are not being as clear as we think we are.

And Srini, to your point, there are indeed naming changes occuring with our mobile clients so as to make it more clear that we are offering the benefits of Jabber not just on the desktop, but also on tablets and mobile devices. Since you are quite knowledgeable about our products, it is quite helpful to have you contributing to the discussions in our communities. I admit there is likely to be some confusion as we roll out the new Jabber clients that will come to replace some of the other applications that you are familiar with.

Bear with us, and keep the discussion going. We can't do it without our customers and your feedback is invaluable!

Thanks again,

Mark

Collaboration Marketing

[bjames]

Thanks Mark, how about Partners under NFR?

Anyway as far as where the confusion lies; the video showing off the end points (I can't remeber his name - the product manager) said the Mac lcient is available now. As far as the media, I've read two media reports on the announcement from Cisco (websites) that both said the Mac client was available now.

So you can see why there is confusion.

Looking forward to seeing (or Beta'ing) the clients.

Bob

[mgervase]

Hi Bob,

I'm not sure of the timing of the availability of Jabber Clients for our partners. Definitely something for our channels experts to get involved with.

As far as the other topic, confusion over release dates, we're probably not being clear enough about the difference between "announce," "order," and "general availability" dates. While Jabber was announced March 1, GA will occur over time on various platforms. No wonder you're confused! Its starting to make my head spin as well.  Available today we still have our Unified Personal Communicator and WebEx Connect clients for desktops and Cisco Mobile apps for smartphones. Rebranding and repackaging certain features as Jabber will happen over time but most if not all of the Jabber features are available today throughout our collab apps portfolio. That message is probably what's confusing people - we have everything today, but Jabber will make things even simpler and better, and Jabber is coming soon to all platforms. Simple, right?  Sorry about all the confusion. I'm glad you're keeping us honest and asking the right questions.

Mark