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October 25, 2013

Cisco Brings Jabber Guest and Other Tools to Cisco Event


Cisco's Collaboration Summit event was, as many had hoped, eventful, presenting several new tools for collaboration and communications. These tools are increasingly valuable in the light of a workforce that's becoming increasingly mobile and geographically scattered as well. The centerpiece of the announcements that followed was the new Jabber Guest system, but beyond that, Cisco also had some other tools in the pipe to better connect those who make up a business' operations.

Cisco Jabber Guest offers up a variety of powerful, useful functions, both by itself and in conjunction with other Cisco releases, some of which were even announced at the event. With Cisco Jabber Guest, a company can open up immediate “guest access” to those needing access to the company's communications infrastructure without having to be concerned about potential dangers. On Cisco Jabber Guest, those like customers, outside consultants, or members of partnering organizations can quickly set up a connection—voice and video connectivity styles are both in place and allowed for—with the people in the target organization that needed to be contacted. Said contact can take place over a mobile device, or from a more standard desktop-based device, and can all be done via a simple link provided in an e-mail, or on a website for easy access.

Jabber Guest uses the Web-based real time communications (WebRTC) platform in order to provide the ability to generate voice and video calling—as well as data sharing—over a Web browser, so sticking with a Google or Mozilla browser in the short term will likely produce the best results in such a use.

Some might be wondering how Jabber Guest can offer that kind of capability without compromising security, and that comes in another recently-announced Cisco product, Cisco Expressway. Cisco Expressway offers a gateway approach to security that can establish reliable security without the processes of device-level registration, giving users—regardless of location—access to collaboration tools like Jabber Guest. Jabber Guest can also work with Cisco Contact Center Enterprise to provide even more useful functions like better call routing to provide faster resolutions on incoming calls.

Cisco even introduced new hardware like the second generation of TelePresence MX300 endpoints, which offer improved design aesthetics and better ease of use, taking around 15 minutes to assemble and provision, start to finish. Cisco also brought out the IP Phone 7800 series, a PoE class-1 device with a new and more ergonomic design.

Cisco brought a lot out at its event, but the clear winner here was Jabber Guest, which embraces the WebRTC standard and offers a great new way for people outside a business to get in contact with that business, while at the same time allowing the contacted business to maintain security standards and protect itself from outside intrusion. Cisco's other products look to help in that regard, and keeping in touch with workers regardless of location is about to get even simpler.

Taking advantage of the distributed workforce, the mobile workforce, allows a company to better respond to issues that arise regardless of time of day, while at the same time being better equipped to take advantage of talent in remote locations. That kind of access can really put some punch in a business' bottom line when correctly managed, and Cisco Jabber Guest—backed up by the rest of the huge Cisco lineup—is a great way to get there.




Edited by Stefania Viscusi
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