Network Ninja

I’m bogged down at the moment with HP Partnership Management work and haven’t been making posts on Network Ninja (never mind touch CCNP books or get organized with putting my LAB together) so don’t feel left out if you feel I have been neglecting updating, I feel like I am running backwards fast on getting my CCNP done.

I haven’t had time for anything else either like seeing clients, making sales, doing installations or even going into the office (I’m not really complaining all that much about the last one). I’ve moved my “office” to my house and for the time being haven’t seen any other room but my Study and Bedroom. Teleworking is really the bomb, rolling out of bed and getting straight to work suits me just fine (for a while) I kind of like separating my home and work life when it gets down to it.

I did however break my self inflicted work isolation to attend the brief for the new collaboration portfolio hosted by Christopher Thompson, Senior Director for Solutions Marketing at Cisco via Telepresence (ooooh!! very nice kit this). This was the first time I was actually in the room attending a meeting using the Cisco Telepresence (above) solution, while Chris was in Europe we were in South Africa and let me tell you, when I grow up one day I am getting one of these! My web cam just doesn’t cut it any more. A little off-topic, I did a post on Telepresence a while ago and I did say that everyone should organize a Demo for themselves (Call Cisco and ask) because let me tell you impressive does not cover this solution, its really amazing!

After the meeting ended we chatted with Chris for a while and he mentioned that by Friday (that is Friday 26th not next Friday) he will have done 300 presentations to Press and other parties all over the world on the Collaboration Portfolio. Imagine the cost savings Cisco realised in one week by doing these Telepresence meetings versus sending multiple people like Chris (Senior Director mind you) all over the world to do these briefings for the pre-launch? AND This is just one event and they do this all the time!

I am going to say again to any Corporate or Mid-sized company that is interested in Telepresence to cut down travel costs for meetings where they have multiple locations either nationally or internationally. Organise a demo by calling Cisco or a local Partner you won’t look back. Back to the topic.

Collaboration

The concept of Collaboration in the workplace (Also during Degree Training at Universities) has been a hot-topic for a while and many vendors (IT or not) have positioned product, services and bundled solutions at this space because of its “importance” in $$$ terms. Whether these products are new and engineered to meet this need or old re-boxed marketing/advertising spins is another topic for another day.

The importance of Collaboration cannot be discounted however as maximizing the ease, effectiveness and efficiency of communication, sharing, meetings and abilities inter- and intra-company drives higher return on investment per project as more can be done, more effectively, in less time, with more ease, without the need of any re-work and no-work because of crossed-wires and misunderstanding.

Collaboration with Cisco

The Cisco Collaboration Portfolio is designed and engineered to work with you like you work. That’s whether you are 20 or 50 the CEO or the Grad Student doing the coffee run. Cisco realises that people, companies, and age groups are different and they have modeled an open solution portfolio set to suit the way in which individual companies work and the individuals in the company like to work.

The solution will work even in mixed deployment environments where Microsoft, Linux, OSX and others play as it was made to be operating system independant. There is deeper linking with vendors like IBM and Microsoft (if that matters). The portfolio scales from small to super-size by being either hosted on demand (SaaS) or mixed hosted and on-premises or totally on-premises. The portfolio will help accelerate business processes, increase productivity and speed innovation by bringing people together and helping them work more efficiently and effectively together.

The Portfolio consists of Unified Communications, Video (Telepresence) and new Web 2.0 applications platforms all of which leverage the network as a platform to enable people to connect, communicate and collaborate from ANY WORKSPACE (Microsoft, Apple, Linux and even Smartphones) without degradation of service of a change of experience.

The Portfolio works the way you do and is designed to integrate with business applications, existing IT infrastructure and other web services (If it has an API it can integrate examples Goolge, Flickr, Salesforce), allowing developers and partners to develop and create customized applications and network based services.

The Portfolio includes some of the following key products and solutions:

Cisco Unified Communications Release 7.0

Cisco Unified Communications System Release 7.0 enables collaboration so that organisations can quickly adapt to market changes and improve competitive advantage through speed and innovation. Accelerating the deployment of unified communications requires the ability to leverage existing infrastructure and applications.

It offers enhancements to its applications development environment and provides deeper integration with desktop products from IBM and Microsoft. Mobility enhancements extend productivity features across every workspace.

Cisco Unified Mobile Communicator now supports devices running on Windows Mobile as well as Symbian and Blackberry with support for Apple iPhone coming soon. Cisco UC Release 7.0 continues to drive down system and management costs by increasing Cisco Unified Presence scalability to 30,000 users and Cisco Unity to 15,000 users on a single server and by optimizing network management through an easy-to-use appliance deployment environment.

Unified workspace

Cisco TelePresence Expert on Demand

Cisco TelePresence Expert on Demand integrates Cisco Unified Communications and Cisco Unified Contact Center with the immersive “in person” experience of Telepresence to transform the way organisations deliver high-touch customer and point of sale services.

It enables customers to connect with subject-matter experts for tailored, in-person service at the touch of a button. This gives users the ability to summon expert assistance directly in a Cisco TelePresence meeting or use a dedicated customer-facing Cisco TelePresence endpoint and get face-to-face assistance.

An organisation can choose to configure Cisco TelePresence Expert on Demand with a direct assistance number, a hunt group, or its Cisco Unified Contact Centre deployment. In the latter case, a user will be connected to an appropriate agent via skills-based routing.

Cisco WebEx Connect

Cisco WebEx Connect is a cloud-based application platform for collaborative business mashups. It includes a number of standard applications including enterprise instant messaging, team spaces, document management, calendaring and wikis, which can be combined with third party widgets built using open APIs, enabling companies to work from a single workspace. Extensive administrative controls support enterprise policy, security and compliance requirements to enable highly secure inter-company collaboration.

WebEx Connect works with Cisco Unified Communication system to deliver seamless communication capabilities within the context of a collaborative mash-up.

More Information:

Cisco Collaboration Homepage

Cisco Unified Communications 7.0

Thanks

Thanks goes out to JP and Jonathan for the Invite to the Brief.