Collaboration and Hybrid Work, the only one that is the best of both worlds – and it’s not Microsoft Teams
Cisco’s Enterprise Connect is one of the leading global conferences and trade shows for the communications industry. Among the many highlights of being back live after three years (seeing customers, partners, and industry peers), the one we can’t stop thinking about is “Cage Match,” an in-depth assessment of the leading vendors for unified communications and collaboration held at Cisco’s event.
Every year, these competitive sessions are the most anticipated and best-attended at Cisco’s Enterprise Connect — attendees have been flocking to them for more than ten years to hear the latest insights from veteran industry analysts Phil Edholm and Brent Kelly. It continues to be popular because the session is based on extensive research, interviews, and firsthand testing of each solution.
Cage Match was exciting to most, especially considering how hybrid work is becoming more common across organizations and how Webex solves the challenges businesses face when connecting a diverse, hybrid workforce. The session dug deep into what organizations need to survive and thrive while they welcome some employees back to the office and continue to support their remote workforce.
The analysts’ assessment led them to conclude that Webex is the only solution that’s a leader in both Meetings and Telephony!
We asked one of the analysts to summarize the state of collaboration technologies and explain the Webex advantages for the benefit of our current and prospective customers. We now have an eBook providing these highlights in greater detail (see below for the link to get a copy). Full disclosure: Cisco commissioned these reports to focus on the Webex advantages and differentiators. Still, the information is based on an objective, thorough, and independent assessment. We’ll let the analysis speak for itself, but here are some key findings that I believe you will find relevant to your business.
Superior end-to-end experience
With a complete software and hardware solution, Cisco optimizes user experience and value. And being compared to Apple (yes, that Apple!) —a valued partner and a highly respected innovator and pioneer — was a high point for us!
The analysis pointed to Cisco’s hardware and software integration features across Webex as a critical differentiator in the collaboration market. Deep integration optimizes experience, improves functionality, and enables more advanced capabilities for users.
Single platform advantage
Cisco’s complete, integrated platform also delivers enormous benefits for customer organizations in terms of simplified deployment, security, management, and analytics. The single platform approach eliminates high integration costs, effort, and risks. The result is a better user experience and integrated delivery for administrators who won’t have to combine multiple tools to get similar results.
When it comes to collaboration technologies, complexity can often be the enemy. While many communications and collaboration tools are available today, we believe providing a single integrated platform that works seamlessly with Cisco networking, security, and devices makes Webex a best-in-class solution that is simpler to deploy and use.
Technology innovation
Cisco invested heavily in innovation to take user experience and productivity to a new level. The analysts recognized Cisco’s excellence in diverse areas such as AI-based audio and video intelligence.
Cisco’s Audio Intelligence capabilities use artificial intelligence to optimize the speaker’s voice or to equalize group meeting voices—meaning everyone can be heard at their best. This feature will also eliminate background noise, improving collaboration experiences. A new video capability called People Focus equalizes the size and focus of participants’ screen presence, ensuring equal impact and inclusivity… no more tiny heads in the back of the conference room!
Another advancement Cisco incorporated into the platform is real-time translation, which translates content into a variety of languages as well as audio transcriptions for faster and easier recaps of the meeting or event.
Competitive and flexible pricing
Pricing for collaboration solutions can often be misleading as it depends on deployment scope and options within an organization. This analysis removes some of the confusion by putting pricing claims to the test with actual customer use cases. When these real-life scenarios are considered in detail, Webex is shown to be highly competitive—and, in fact, the price leader in many cases.
We believe this assessment and analysis is an incredible resource to help you determine how communications and collaboration technologies could improve your business. We know how Webex feels about it, but you should see if this analysis resonates with you and your business needs. Check out this independent validation of the Webex advantages today by asking us for a copy of this eBook at sales@ip4b.ca or call us at 514-444-4742.