Customers benefit from expanded Cisco IP
Communications portfolio that boosts productivity, security and system migration
SAN JOSE, Calif., February, 2004 - Cisco
SystemsŪ today announced a new wave of compelling products and solutions for its Internet
Protocol (IP) Communications system that take full advantage of a converged voice, video
and data network to deliver a rich-media communications experience.
Today's announcement includes an exciting
new video telephony solution and significant conferencing, security and system migration
enhancements powered by Cisco AVVID (Architecture for Voice, Video and Integrated Data).
These new solutions are drivers for greater communication effectiveness, business
resilience and security for enterprise organizations.
Video Telephony Adds to Productivity
Quotient
The introduction of Cisco CallManager release 4.0, the award winning Cisco IP PBX,
features a new desktop productivity solution called Cisco Video Telephony (VT) Advantage
release 1.0. Cisco VT Advantage allows real-time person-to-person video sessions to be
added transparently to telephone calls. With Cisco VT Advantage and Cisco CallManager 4.0,
users can cost-effectively create an instant face-to-face video call with access to the
familiar hold, transfer and conference features of their Cisco IP Phone for the
video-enabled telephone call. Cisco VT Advantage uses the flexibility of IP to provide
broadcast-quality video and sound previously unavailable to most video conferencing
systems.
Orange Caribbean, part of the Orange
Group, one of the world's largest mobile communications companies with operations in 19
countries, has been using CallManager 4.0 and Cisco VT Advantage to communicate across the
islands of Guadeloupe, Martinique, Dominica, French Guyana and the Dominican Republic.
Executive feedback on the technology has been unilaterally positive.
"Putting a face on certain core
business communications improves decision making," said Orange Caribbean Chief
Information Officer Patrick Raimond. "It is really easy to use. It runs on existing
desktop tools so you don't need to get used to a new machine, and it is relatively low on
bandwidth. The image is as clear as seeing someone in person, so it has already cut our
travel cost significantly. Our next step will be to extend our experience with the
technology to our customers through our converged service portfolio."
How Cisco VT Advantage Works
Cisco VT Advantage interoperates with multiple new and existing desktop and room-based
videoconferencing systems. The solution integrates a Cisco IP Phone with an associated
personal computer to deliver users a rich-media video telephony experience. Cisco VT
Advantage application software coupled with a Cisco universal serial bus (USB) camera
makes the personal computer video-telephony ready. For other applications, the same video
calls can be made using Cisco VT Advantage with new personal and conference room video
systems from TANDBERG, which are specifically enhanced for use with Cisco CallManager 4.0.
Cisco CallManager 4.0 also integrates with solutions from other Cisco AVVID partners and
their H.323 video endpoints allowing customers to preserve their existing video
investments.
"The personal workspace is becoming
increasingly media-rich as the industry moves towards integrated voice, video and data
communication and collaboration," said Chris Kozup, program director with META
Group's Technology Research Services. "As user acceptance of the technology
increases, the integration of video and telephony at the desktop is a natural evolution to
enhancing the collaborative experience and improving the effectiveness of internal
meetings."
System Security Enhanced
A number of new security enhancements in Cisco CallManager 4.0 extend the capabilities of
the Cisco intelligent self defending network to better protect Cisco IP Communications
systems and provide improved business resilience. New industry-standard digital
certificates confirm the identity of network devices to protect against entry of rogue
system users and new standards-based encryption has been added to CallManager 4.0
providing end-to-end privacy in voice communications.
Business resilience has also been
enhanced with the new Cisco Security Agent (CSA), which is a key component of Cisco's
overall security strategy. CSA provides proactive and adaptive threat protection for Cisco
IP phones, servers and desktop computing systems. It brings together multiple levels of
security functionality by combining host intrusion prevention, authentication to Cisco IP
phones, distributed firewall, malicious mobile code protection, operating system integrity
assurance, and audit log consolidation all within a single agent package. Cisco
CallManager 4.0 customers, as well as Cisco Unity and Cisco IP Contact Center customers,
receive all of these additional levels of safety and protection for their converged
networks at no extra cost.
New Migration and Interoperability
Options
With new native support for Q.SIG and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) signaling in
CallManager 4.0, the Cisco IP Communications system can interoperate with systems from the
past and systems of the future. Q.SIG, the world wide signaling standard for private
branch exchange (PBX) systems, provides CallManager 4.0 customers worldwide with the
ability to interoperate with existing legacy PBX equipment and financial systems.
Support for SIP allows CallManager 4.0 to
interoperate with a variety of current and future communications systems as well,
including Cisco MeetingPlace, the Cisco BTS 10200 softswitch, and Cisco and third party
SIP proxy servers. These additions, combined with H.323 voice and video interoperability,
make it easy for customers to integrate Cisco IP Communications systems with existing
voice and video communications equipment.
Rich Media Conferencing
Today, Cisco also introduced the new Cisco MeetingPlaceTM 8106 Rich-Media Conferencing
Server. Cisco MeetingPlace delivers the true benefits of a converged IP voice, video and
web conferencing environment using technology acquired through Cisco's recent acquisition
of Latitude Communications.
Cisco MeetingPlace allows users to
participate in and control audio and web conferences through their Cisco IP Phone,
traditional phone or PC. Cisco IP phone users can easily view schedules, set-up audio
conferences and attend real-time meetings using soft keys on their phone display screen.
Both the Cisco VT Advantage and the Cisco MeetingPlace solutions are key elements of
Cisco's overall vision of delivering customers a rich-media communications experience.
About Cisco Systems
Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide leader in networking for the
Internet. Cisco news and information are available at http://www.cisco.com
