AVI-SPL has been a Cisco solutions provider for more than a decade, the company says. It thus continues to deepen and expand the expertise in its Cisco practice to guide companies everywhere. With this, it aims to reimagine the workplace for better employee, partner and customer engagement as new hybrid work models take hold. In Cisco fiscal year (FY) 2023, AVI-SPL ranked as the #3 video devices partner in the U.S. and globally.

“Cisco’s recognition of AVI-SPL as a leading workspaces partner speaks volumes to our ability to confidently guide customers to reimagine and realize the modern work experience,” says Tom Nyhus, AVI-SPL vice president of the Cisco practice. “By embracing Cisco Webex’s innovative, leading-edge roadmap and programs, together we’ve helped global companies stay securely connected and productive from anywhere.”

The partnership between Cisco and AVI-SPL grew significantly in 2023 with new, joint go-to-market efforts. Per a statement, AVI-SPL led the way with the new Cisco Webex Hardware as a Service (HaaS) program. It thus became one of the first partners to conduct a customer pilot of the program. AVI-SPL also beta-tested new video devices and provided feedback through Cisco’s Video Champions Advisory Council around market trends and customer needs.

The Cisco 2023 Webex Partner Award honors partners who have developed and delivered exceptional Cisco-based solutions and services during the past year.

Cisco announced the Annual Partner Awards during the WebexOne 2023 conference on October 25, 2023. Additional details on the 2023 awards are available on the Cisco Webex blog.

Another version of this article originally appeared on our sister-site Commercial Integrator on November 1, 2023. It has since been updated for My TechDecisions’ audience.

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Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology is the evolution of outdated PBX (Private Branch Exchange) calling, allowing phone calls to take place over an internet connection. The benefits of adopting a VoIP phone system are big, and it starts with your business’s bottom line.

Here, we’ll break down the difference between VoIP and more traditional solutions while exploring how the technology can improve business outcomes altogether through:

• Better employee and customer experiences
• Reduced cost and complexity
• Seamless cloud migration paths
• Support for a flexible, extensible solution

How is VoIP an improvement over legacy systems?

VoIP phone systems offer advanced features and modern flexibility that PBX simply can’t match.  And adopting VoIP can yield tangible results for your company, including:

1. Easy deployment, onboarding and maintenance

Cloud-hosted VoIP solutions eliminates the need for on-premises PBX hardware. So, adopting cloud-hosted VoIP mitigates all of the associated maintenance and management of that hardware. This ultimately leads to less of a need for internal IT to troubleshoot and amend issues. With that saved time and budget, businesses can focus less on upkeep and more on productivity.

2. Better call quality

Another benefit of moving to a cloud-hosted VoIP phone system are the advanced features a business can take advantage of. Advances in AI for collaboration have led to much better call quality for fully cloud-hosted VoIP phone systems. From background noise removal and audio intelligence to personalized voice optimization settings, call quality is taken to a whole new level, which means less distractions for remote and hybrid workers and less interruptions for any size call.

2. Advanced functionality and features that are always up to date

Landlines are limited to a single function: voice. With VoIP, users can communicate in real time with voice or video calls, and keep software stay up to date thanks to the cloud—among a myriad of other functionalities.

The best VoIP phone systems include a single dashboard to manage users and onboard new team members. Plus, you eliminate the headaches of PBX installation, since you can port over existing lines or create new lines without external help.

3. Built-in security that protects sensitive data

Thanks to additional layers of encryption like Transport Layer Security (TLS), VoIP offers built-in call and data protection that’s better at guarding sensitive information than landline phone systems.

4. Improved collaboration

With an increasing number of professionals working in a hybrid environment, employee availability and their ability to connect to each other is essential. Leading VoIP providers can deliver elite features to make team collaboration smoother in these cases. For example, the ability to elevate a VoIP call into a full video conference with ease. Or the ability to use a personal mobile phone with the native phone dialer when on-the-go and transition to any other device without leaving the call. And of course, teams need full-featured communication capabilities—instant messaging, group chats, file and screen sharing, and breakout calls.

How a cloud VoIP phone system can improve your business’s bottom line

The improvements that VoIP makes over legacy PBX systems will help your business’s bottom line. Here’s how:

1. Reduced capital costs

Without the need for additional hardware or service packages, VoIP is far more affordable than landline calling. It’s not unusual for traditional private branch exchange (PBX) systems to cost upwards of $1,000 per user. On average, VoIP systems come in at a much lower cost per user, usually somewhere around $20 per user, per month.

2. Scalability for evolving workplaces

Without the need for additional hardware, and the only requirement being an internet connection, VoIP is much easier to scale as IT personnel are able to add additional lines and numbers with ease, all in one dashboard. This gives VoIP a clear business advantage over traditional PBX.

3. Supporting flexible work environments

VoIP empowers businesses to lean fully into hybrid work. With the right tools, employees can work more easily from home and with less trouble than outdated communication tools. With that, VoIP can have a material impact on efficiency of your business by providing streamlined communication to all employees, no matter where they’re working from.

4. Easier management and administration, and reduced IT costs

Another key benefit of VoIP technology is how much easier it is to manage for your IT department. Typical VoIP solutions feature a centralized platform for administration. This empowers IT admins to monitor call performance for the entire phone system and every user from a single dashboard. From optimizing call quality and bandwidth utilization to easily adding users, this feature makes life easier for your entire IT team.

Key Takeaways

VoIP enables better experiences for employees and customers across the board while being more affordable, reliable and flexible than legacy PBX technology. Its benefits far outweigh those offered by traditional landlines. And, it’s incredibly easy to move away from a PBX system to cloud-based VoIP. Whether taking a phased approach or moving completely to the cloud, businesses can significantly cut costs, simplify management for IT, and make work easier for every department.

Reilly Nolan, Content Marketing Manager, Webex by Cisco.

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Addressing a Seamless, Flexible and Native Integration with Webex Calling

The companies announced plans that will help ensure a seamless and reliable mobile-first collaboration experience, allowing users the flexibility to take calls across multiple devices while traveling for work, running errands and more.

Cisco and AT&T says with the dramatic increase in the use of mobile phones as the primary business device, enterprises need connectivity solutions that are easy to manage, secure and provide the flexibility and reliability desired for work from anywhere. The Cisco and AT&T integration addresses this need with key features including:

• Single number mobile identity: Combining the capabilities of an AT&T wireless smartphone with the native integration of Webex Calling will provide greater functionality and flexibility for on-the-go communication.
• Reduce costs: This integration helps enterprise customers lower costs by reducing or eliminating the need for traditional fixed business lines.
• Crystal clear voice: AT&T Cloud Voice with Webex Go allows users to securely make and receive business calls using AT&T’s fast, reliable nationwide mobile network and seamlessly elevate calls to a Webex collaboration experience across the Webex App and devices, with capabilities like closed captioning, noise removal, and whiteboarding.
• Fast, efficient, and secure collaboration: AT&T and Cisco’s joint solution will increase the ability to effectively and securely collaborate no matter the location, resulting in improved knowledge sharing and faster decision making.

AT&T Cloud Voice with Webex Go will be available for all Webex Calling users from Cisco partners in the United States later this year.

SD-WAN Connectivity for SMBs, Enterprise Businesses

Demand for unified experiences over secure connectivity to the cloud and site-to-site continues to surge. Cisco and AT&T are working together to bring secure on-demand connectivity for SD-WAN with add-on services that may include mobile 5G and fiber broadband to businesses of every size.

For small and medium businesses, AT&T is launching a new self-service option to simplify and accelerate SD-WAN deployment. Businesses can now connect, protect, manage, and scale their networks using AT&T Business Wi-Fi with Cisco Meraki.

For larger enterprises, AT&T SD-WAN with Cisco is a fully managed connectivity solution with embedded security and analytics. Enterprises can now connect a user or device to any application in their multicloud using a secure access service edge (SASE)-enabled architecture. This delivers integrated security and application optimization for end-to-end visibility.

Cisco will also provide the ability to embed AT&T wireless connectivity into Cisco devices enabling zero touch provisioning for Cisco and AT&T customers, through AT&T Control Center powered by Cisco.

“The network is at the core of the modern workforce. The ability to get things done is no longer reliant on where you are, but how you are connected,” said Jonathan Davidson, EVP and general manager of Cisco Networking. “Hybrid work only works when there is a seamless, consistent, and secure experience for workers, regardless of location. Together with AT&T, we are giving businesses what they need to securely connect everything and everyone—wherever they are. Because when everything is connected, then anything is possible.”

Mike Troiano, SVP, business products, AT&T“Mobility, said, in a statement, “Mobility is key to enabling hybrid work. Businesses want a seamless and reliable communication experience. At the heart of our collaboration with Cisco is a shared vision to empower organizations with secure connectivity, unmatched reliability, and deep network expertise. By deeply integrating our technology, businesses can be assured their communications are built on a solid foundation. Together we are unlocking new levels of productivity, agility, and connectivity— enabling teams to thrive in the modern work landscape.”

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Announced at Cisco Live, the features – powered by large language models – come as Cisco is also bringing generative AI to its security tools to help augment security analysts and simplify policy management and threat response.

The news also comes as competitor platforms such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams are announcing similar generative AI capabilities in their respective collaboration platforms also designed to help users become more efficient during and after meetings.

Cisco’s new Webex AI features, which will be available by the end of the year, include  “Catch Me Up”, which is designed to allow users to catch up on missed interactions such as meetings, calling, chats and more.

Meanwhile, intelligent meeting summaries will give users outlines of meetings with key points and action items. Users can opt in to automatically generate the most important parts of a Webex meeting, extract the key points and capture action items with owners.

Cisco’s vision is for intelligent meeting summaries to be a time-saver for attendees and employees with busy schedules who may be unable to make every important meeting. This also eliminates the need to listen to a recording or read through a transcript.

Similarly, Cisco Summaries in Vidcast, the company’s video messaging solution, that will produce highlights and chapters so viewers can navigate to the most important parts of the video quickly.

For contact center agents, Cisco is also bringing AI-powered conversation summaries to Webex Contact Center to give agents an automated way to consume long-form text from digital chats with customers as well as facilitating post-call wrap-up and resolution with customers, the company says.

Cisco gives the example of a customer call being escalated to a human agent where the customer expects the agent to be informed and not have to repeat what they’ve already told virtual agents and automated systems. Summaries give agents a clear summarization of issues and resolutions already explored via self-service and a summary of the call to both the agent and customer once it ends, the firm says.

In a statement, Jeetu Patel, the company’s executive vice president and general manager of security and collaboration, said generative AI will quickly become part of any business’ tools.

“At Cisco, we’ve been using AI for years,” Patel says. “Now we’re unveiling how we’re incorporating generative AI into our existing products, helping customers drive real value to unlock the most secure, unrivaled work experiences possible.”

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Announced at Cisco Live in Las Vegas, Cisco announced Cisco Networking Cloud for simplified IT management, security service edge solution Cisco Secure Access, a new Secure Firewall 4200, Cisco Multicloud Defense, Cloud Native Application Security, Full-Stack Observability, a generative AI-powered security assistant and a new Webex device.

Cisco Networking Cloud

Cisco announced its vision for the Cisco Networking Cloud: to simplify network management via a single platform experience for seamlessly managing all networking domains.

New innovations include single sign-on, API key exchange/repository, sustainable data center networking solutions and expanded network assurance with Cisco Thousand Eyes.

Cisco says Networking Cloud will “dramatically simplify IT” with a more flexible Cisco Catalyst switch stack, improved visibility into data center power and energy consumption and new AI data center blueprints to improve performance and visibility for network operations.

Security enhancements

Cisco announced several new security tools and enhancements, including a new security service edge solution for hybrid work security, generative AI capabilities and innovations across firewall, multicloud and application security.

The company during its Cisco Live event announced its first generative AI capabilities in the Security Cloud, including an AI-powered Policy Assistant designed to help security and IT administrators describe granular security policies and evaluate how best to implement them across different aspects of their security infrastructure. It will be available later this year.

Cisco also announced a new SOC Assistant, available by the end of the year, to help support SOC analysts and detect and respond to threats faster by contextualizing events across email, web, endpoints and the network to tell the analyst what happened and the impact.

In addition, Cisco announced the Cisco Firewall 4200 Series, featuring AI and ML-based encrypted threat blocking without decryption, complete threat inspection and policy for each individual application and simplified branch routing. Cisco Secure Firewall 4200 Series appliance will be generally available in September 2023 supporting the 7.4 version of the operating system. The 7.4 OS will be generally available for the rest of the Secure Firewall appliance family in December 2023.

Cisco also announced new capabilities in Panoptica, the company’s cloud-native application security solution including Cloud Security Posture Management, a new attack path engine and an integration with Cisco’s Full Stack Observability portfolio.

Full-Stack Observability

The company also used its Cisco Live event to announce the general availability of its Full-Stack Observability (FSO) platform to give customers the ability to develop and grow an application ecosystem built on an open, extensible architecture, including new use cases in a single consumption model. Additionally, Cisco’s new bi-directional integration between AppDynamics and ThousandEyes drives powerful customer digital experience monitoring and closes observability gaps with rapid actionable recommendations and insights, the company says.

Room Bar Pro

Also at Cisco Live, Cisco announced the Room Bar Pro, a new easy-to-deploy video bar with “significant processing power, more connections, touch screen integration, and all of the advanced AI capabilities built into (Cisco’s) RoomOS platform.”

Cisco says the Room Bar Pro, based on the powerful NVIDIA processor, is optimized for medium workspaces (5-12 seats) of varying shapes. The device also features a dual camera system that reaches further, wider, and frames everyone in the room in ultra-high quality, even when participants are sitting at the ends of the table.

The post Cisco Live 2023: Simplified Management, Enhanced Security, AI appeared first on My TechDecisions.

According to Gartner, SASE includes SD-WAN, SWG, CASB, NGFW and enables zero trust access based on the identity of the device or entity, combined with real-time context and security compliance policies.

What is driving SASE adoption?

Organizations are struggling with complex IT infrastructure that has largely been driven by a massive increase in cloud adoption coupled with on-prem, legacy infrastructure in response to the pandemic and general market trends, according to Omri Guelfand, vice president of product management and SASE/networking as a service at Cisco Meraki.

While this trend began in the “early days” of cloud adoption with applications and assets moving out of the data center into private clouds, public clouds and co-located options, the pandemic greatly accelerated that shift. That pandemic-induced cloud migration was so rapid–essentially overnight–that organizations were forced to accelerate their cloud strategy by several years.

The result is an IT environment in which applications, resources, users, contractors and other entities are anywhere and everywhere, which makes managing and securing an organization’s network endlessly complex.

Essentially, SASE is designed to bring all of that together by delivering on one core underlying requirement: securely connecting users to applications–both of which could be anywhere. SASE is designed to make managing a network easier and more cohesive, which is essential as networking without security is becoming impossible, and the merging of networking and security is a foregone conclusion.

Different approaches to SASE

As organizations got to work to solve some of these networking and security challenges over the last few years, a variety of different approaches to solving some of these issues have emerged.

According to Guelfand, separate networking and security teams have started to solve all of these pieces to create better coverage of all the functions of a SASE architecture by deploying different solutions from a variety of different vendors, which he calls the “best of breed” approach.

“Gradually, you’ll create better coverage of all the functions,” Guelfand says.

On the other end of the spectrum is a one-stop shop for organizations that are less focused on how to get a complete SASE architecture. In this case, organizations typically work with one vendor or a managed service provider (MSP) to put all of those pieces together.

For an analogy, Guelfand uses food. For example, if someone wants to source the best ingredients for a pasta dish, they visit a specialty food store for past and sauce, a farmstand for fresh vegetables, and then a butcher for their protein.

Or, the person can just put their trust in a restaurant.

“A unified SASE is more of this ready-made dish where you’re benefitting from a quick-to-value to get the outcome you want and you don’t have to go through a lot of extra work, versus the other approach that gives you much more flexibility and control, but it comes with more things you have to do,” Guelfand says.

Benefits of the unified SASE approach

In the unified SASE approach, the name of the game is reduced complexity that starts with procurement of the solution. In the unified, single-source approach, SASE is a product rather than a combination of multiple point products, thus simplifying the consumption of the technology.

“This is where you have a more streamlined, consistent operational model whether you’re in a network context or security context,” Guelfand says. “At the end of the day, these are all policies that could be connectivity or security policies.”

The unified SASE approach blurs the lines between networking and security and brings those elements together into a consistent operational model that not only creates a better admin and user experience, but also makes solving incidents and issues easier.

Instead of the networking or security teams blaming each other and playing the blame game, the unified SASE approach gives “one throat to choke,” Guelfand says.

Especially for smaller organizations with a limited IT staff, a complete SASE solution from one vendor or service provider will help take that burden off of their hands.

Benefits of the best-of-breed SASE approach

However convenient the unified SASE approach may be, the reality is that most organizations are not yet ready to fully consume a unified offering, as many organizations are still operating with separate security and networking teams with different vendor preferences.

Organizations are also balancing their level of control and flexibility versus simplicity, with larger organizations typically opting to deploy point solutions to drive their SASE strategy. Those organizations will generally have a larger IT staff and a better IT staff-to-employee ratio, affording the organization more flexibility and more options.

Merging of networking and security teams

However, Guelfand says even those larger organizations with the typical silos are going down the consolidation path as networking and security teams begin to merge.

Typically, smaller organizations that were “born in the cloud” don’t have the legacy separation of networking and security functions, instead employing a type of digital IT that covers the full spectrum of activities.

Even at larger organizations with those legacy silos, there is consolidation at the executive level, and many of those larger security teams are actively driving SASE initiatives because the network has already started the transformation.

“Now it’s really around catching up with security and making sure that security can really be enabled to support this highly distributed environment in a way that solves the operational challenges of just managing point firewalls and policies that are scattered in different directions,” Guelfand says.

Key considerations when adopting and implementing SASE

• Evaluate different SASE solutions. Look at single-vendor solutions, multi-vendor point products, and managed offerings. Gartner recommends cutting complexity and cost by consolidating vendors at contact renewals, but acknowledges that there are still three legitimate ways to implementing SASE:
  • A single-vendor approach
  • A multi-vendor approach
  • A managed SASE approach
• Evaluate scalability and flexibility. SASE solutions that can scale both up and down to meet the needs of an organization is important.
• Leverage existing investments. Rather than a rip-and-replace strategy, organizations should leverage and integrate their existing capabilities and solutions to protect those investments.
• How do the vendors, partners or service providers help guide customers on their SASE journey?
• Any SASE solution should be based on robust security research and insights to protect against emerging threats. This is especially important when deploying a unified solution, which is essentially putting the organization’s complete trust in one vendor.
• How is the SASE platform extensible to other technologies beyond secure network access.

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The new offerings, Secure Access with Cisco Duo and Cloud Security with Cisco+ Secure Connect, will integrate with the company’s managed network services portfolio, including Spectrum’s Managed Network Edge and Enterprise Network Edge solutions.

According to Spectrum Enterprise, layering on Secure Access with Cisco Duo and Cloud Security with Cisco+ Secure Connect gives customers the full protection of SASE that includes routing, SD-WAN, switching, security, remote access and LAN options included in the company’s Managed Network Edge and Enterprise Network Edge offerings.

Secure Access with Cisco Duo will help protect organizations from unauthorized access, credentials abuse and account takeover by allowing IT teams to set access policies by user and device, regardless of location, with multifactor authentication, single sign-on, passwordless and risk-based authentication.

With Cloud Security with Cisco+ Secure Connect, Spectrum customers will get an additional layer of cybersecurity protection when accessing public clouds by leveraging Cisco’s zero trust approach to network access and a streamlined way to implement security priorities across every cloud location and device.

In addition, both services include professional integration and management to hep IT teams layer the capabilities into their network, according to Spectrum.

“Our new security solutions, developed through a collaboration with Cisco, provide additional layers of protection and greater peace of mind for businesses that are leveraging cloud-first, remote or hybrid work solutions to grow their operations,” says Bob Schroeder, vice president, enterprise data product management for Spectrum Enterprise, in a statement. “These products offer additional support and expertise to help clients protect their businesses from the complex cybersecurity threats found in today’s working environments.”

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The company announced the news during the annual RSA Conference. In addition, the company announced new advanced features in all editions of Duo MFA, the Cisco’s access management solution.

What is Cisco’s new XDR offering?

According to the company, Cisco XDR is a cloud-first solution designed to simplify investigation of cyber incidents and enable security operations centers to immediately remediate threats.

Cisco XDR applies analytics to prioritize detections and moves the focus from endless investigations to remediating the highest priority incidents with evidence-backed automation, the company says.

Different from traditional security information and event management (SIEM) solutions, Cisco says its new XDR solution focuses on telemetry-centric data and delivers much faster outcomes by natively analyzing and correlating six telemetry sources that are critical to SOC operations.

The company calls Cisco XDR “as close to real-time as possible,” by dealing with high-fidelity data with insight into ever mailbox, forward, packet and process.

Those six telemetry sources are endpoint, network, firewall, email, identity and DNS, according to Cisco.

For endpoints, Cisco XDR leverages insight from 200 million endpoints with Cisco Secure Client, formerly AnyConnect, to provide process-level visibility of where the endpoint meets the network, the company says.

On the endpoint specifically, Cisco XDR leverages insight from 200 million endpoints with Cisco Secure Client, formerly AnyConnect, to provide process-level visibility of where the endpoint meets the network.

Integrations with third-party security vendors

According to Cisco, the XDR solutions integrates with many third-party vendors to share telemetry and increase interoperability, with an initial set out out-of-the-box integrations that include:

• Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR): CrowdStrike Falcon Insight XDR, Cybereason Endpoint Detection and Response, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, SentinelOne Singularity, Trend Vision One
• Email Threat Defense: Microsoft Defender for Office, Proofpoint Email Protection
• Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW): Check Point Quantum, Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewall
• Network Detection and Response (NDR): Darktrace DETECT and Darktrace RESPOND,  ExtraHop Reveal(x)
• Security Information and Event Management (SIEM): Microsoft Sentinel

By sharing data across vendor lines and applying advanced analytics on that telemetry, Cisco XDR can quickly find and respond to sophisticated attacks, the company says.

When is Cisco XDR available?

According to the company, the XDR solution is currently in Beta and will be generally available in July 2023.

Duo MFA enhancements

Cisco says it is adding Trusted Endpoints to all of its paid Duo editions. This was previously only available in Duo’s highest tier, but are now available starting May 1.

According to Cisco, Trusted Endpoints allows only registered or managed devices to access resources. Trusted Endpoints is now offering alongside Single Sign On, MFA, Passwordless and Verified Push within the entry-level Duo Essential edition.

The post What You Need to Know About Cisco XDR appeared first on My TechDecisions.

According to Cisco, the solution aligns with the U.S. government’s approach to security for cloud products, including air-gapped cloud deployments that are isolated from public networks and operated on U.S. soil by local staff with specific security clearances to handle sensitive data.

The Webex solution for air-gapped deployments will provide an extra layer of security and still allow teams to collaborate through the company’s modern meeting, chat, and calling experiences via the Webex App.

Customers leveraging the air-gapped solution will have interoperability with existing Cisco Unified Communication Management (CUCM) to capitalize on previous investments in Cisco technologies.

According to Cisco, the company already offers Webex for Government, which is currently used by some U.S. security and defense agencies. That includes on-prem solutions for secure collaboration, including calling, messaging, meetings and file sharing. In addition, Cisco says Webex operates a FedRAMP authorized U.S. Trusted Cloud in-country, adhering to FedRAMP requirements.

“There is not a one size fits all solution for collaboration, which is why Webex’s approach to developing fully compliant collaboration solutions for Government takes into account local regulations, compliance requirements and security controls for individual Government communities,” the company says in a blog.

The air-gapped, cloud-based collaboration experience for National security and Defense will be available in 2024, the company says.

While specific to National Security and Defense, Cisco says it will continue to develop compliant and customized Webex solutions across all facets of government.

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According to the companies, the Cisco Board Pro is now certified to run Microsoft Teams Rooms natively on the device, giving customers more choices for flexible collaboration to enhance the hybrid working experience.

The 55-inch and 75-inch models of the Cisco Board Pro can be configured to set up and run Teams Rooms as the default experience, allowing customers to use Teams with Cisco’s purpose-build videoconferencing hardware. These are the first Cisco Rooms devices to be officially certified for Microsoft Teams.

Customers can leverage the AI capabilities built into Cisco’s hardware, including video quality, camera intelligence and noise removal technologies. In addition, Customers can easily switch between Teams and Webex meetings the same device from the Teams Rooms home screen with no reboot or reconfiguration required.

For IT administrators, the collaboration between the two companies allows them to manage Board Pro in the Microsoft Teams Admin Center and the new Teams Rooms Pro Management Portal. In addition, they can leverage other device management and analytics capabilities in Cisco Control Hub and Cisco Spaces.

In addition the Board Pro interoperability, the company are also announcing the new Webex Contact Center for Microsoft Teams, another integration designed to help simplify agent to subject matter expert collaboration and unlock knowledge across the organization to create a more seamless customer experience.

Agents can leverage the integration to connect and collaborate with knowledge workers through the Teams app and route customers to knowledge workers using Teams helping to lessen customer effort.

In addition, the integration provides calling interoperability, directory services, presence awareness, centralized management and administrative features.

More Cisco collaboration devices are expected to receive Teams certification throughout the year, including the Room Bar, Room Kit Pro, in mid-2023. The Room Kit EQ as a native Teams Room solution, the Cisco Desk Pro, running the native Teams Display or the Teams Rooms experience, and the Cisco Room Navigator, supporting the native Teams Panel room scheduling app, will follow in mid-2023.

Other Cisco devices such as the Cisco Desk Camera 4K USB webcam, Cisco Headset 720 Series Bluetooth wireless headsets and the Cisco Headset 320 Series wired headsets already have Teams certification.

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