on 06-26-2012 05:26 AM
SAN JOSE, Calif. – June 26, 2012 – As end-user demands for premium mobility and collaboration solutions continue to escalate, and businesses seek cost-effective ways to deliver the technology needed to meet those expectations, Cisco today announced a bevy of new services and capabilities for the Cisco® Unified Communications Manager platform. The services and capabilities are part of what's called Cisco Unified Communications (UC) Release 9.0 and directly address many of the key challenges IT managers are facing today as they seek to "collaboration-enable" their employees both in the office and on-the-go.
Cisco UC Release 9.0 is the foundation of a unified collaboration strategy and includes the following key advancements:
- How it works: With Extend and Connect, telecommuters and business travelers can simply input the phone number of their preferred voice device into a Jabber® client running on their Windows PC, and Cisco Unified Communications Manager will route all voice traffic directly to that phone number. This allows the worker to use any third-party phone but get the experience of using a full-featured enterprise phone, so they can enjoy all the communications services they have at the office while they're on the road, such as presence, IM and click-to-call. Extend and Connect can maintain excellent voice quality at all times without being dependent upon the quality of the broadband link.
- Cisco believes employees at businesses globally should have access to Cisco's UC environment, even if those employees are not using Cisco endpoints. Extend and Connect gives businesses a cost-effective way to give employees access to the Cisco UC environment by allowing any vendor phone—old or new, analog, digital or IP—to be controlled by Cisco Jabber. As long as the phone is connected to a telephone line, the user can enjoy all the features and capabilities of Cisco Unified Communications Manager that they would if they were using a Cisco IP Phone. With Extend and Connect, businesses can stretch existing investments by continuing to use existing endpoints while easing migration off legacy PBX systems and providing Cisco UC environment capabilities.
Availability
Global availability of Cisco UC Release 9.0 is targeted for Q3 CY 2012. Extend and Connect, one of the many key advancements, requires both UC Release 9.0 as well as Cisco Jabber 9.1. Cisco Jabber 9.1 is scheduled to be available in Q4 CY 2012.
Supporting Quotes
Nick Ciesinski, network architect, University of Wisconsin
"We've relied on Cisco Unified Communications for several years, and this latest version brings several updates that answer pressing business needs: voice traffic has increased exponentially on our network—especially during peak times when applications are due for enrollment and financial aid. Native queuing gives us a way to automate the handling of those spikes in call activity. Additionally, video is becoming increasingly important on our campuses, and URI dialing will ease the process of placing such calls. Plus the centralized license management will save time and effort."
Thomas Wyatt, vice president and general manager, Cisco
"Enterprise IT managers want to address user demands for access to collaborative technologies on a variety of devices. At the same time, resellers are looking to enable IT managers to maximize the value of existing investments while they transition to next-generation collaboration technologies. Cisco UC Release 9.0 does all of this."
Additional Resources:
Technorati Tags:
Cisco Unified Communications, Cisco Unified Communications Manager, IP telephony, Cisco Jabber, Cisco TelePresence, Cisco Customer Care, contact center, video, bandwidth
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 offered across on-premises, cloud-based or virtualized platforms, 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
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 products and features are 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.
Christine Johansen
Cisco Systems, Inc.
+1 617-595-8434
Carol Villazon
Cisco
+1 408 527 6538carolv@cisco.com
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