The innovations will make it possible for people to participate in social collaboration, regardless of where they are working, by bringing social capabilities to the devices and applications that workers use most often.
The innovations build upon existing offerings that help employees share knowledge, find experts and information, and form effective virtual work teams. With this release of WebEx Social, Cisco is introducing the following capabilities:
- Microsoft Office Integration: Cisco announced integration with WebEx Social and Microsoft Office that empower workers using Word, PowerPoint or Excel to jointly edit and post updated documents, presentations and spreadsheets back to WebEx Social.
- Mobility: Cisco introduced enhancements to the WebEx Social iPhone and iPad client that give workers the ability to transition from social networking to real-time IM, Web conferencing, and voice calls directly from their mobile application.
- Video: With new browser-based video calling, people can seamlessly escalate to a high-definition (HD) video conferencing session, without going to a separate application. These sessions are compatible with a wide variety of video endpoints, including Cisco TelePresence, IP video phones, mobile and soft clients.
- Flexible deployment models: With this release, customers will have a choice of deployment models. WebEx Social is available as an on-premise (WebEx Social Server) offering, partner-hosted (through Logicalis, ACS and Alphawest) and a Cisco-hosted cloud-based solution.
With this announcement Cisco said it is extending WebEx cloud services to not only encompass what was formerly known as Quad, but also Cisco Callway, its hosted TelePresence solutions. The company is aligning its Quad and Callway brands with WebEx where they join a leading portfolio of Web conferencing and instant messaging solutions. By bringing a comprehensive solution to the cloud, Cisco provides users and IT with easy access to their social collaboration tools of choice from any device. The expanded WebEx family of cloud collaboration services will use the global data center footprint and operational excellence of the WebEx cloud to deliver highly available, real-time cloud services that meets the needs of the most demanding organizations. The WebEx cloud is the world’s second-largest public cloud for business collaboration applications.
Cisco has also announced new capabilities with Cisco WebEx Telepresence, one of the Cisco WebEx cloud services. Cisco WebEx Telepresence, formerly known as Cisco Callway, is managed by Cisco and sold through Cisco Authorized Partners. Customers can purchase or lease, select multipurpose and personal endpoints and connect those endpoints to a hosted service. This service reduces the complexity and costs with Telepresence, benefits that are appealing to small businesses.
New features include:
- The ability to host a video call with up to nine users on the WebEx Telepresence network. Supports high-quality audio and video (up to 1080p HD video resolution), so employees can meet in-person with their colleagues, suppliers/partners, and customers.
- Company-designated administrators can now centrally manage user subscriptions and contact lists anytime on a new online customer portal.
- Support for Cisco TelePresence MX300 and Cisco TelePresence SX20.
- Streamlined subscription tiers and a new annual pre-pay option making ordering and bill pay easier for Cisco partners and customers.