Cisco Collaboration Summit: Mobility is Still a Side ShowCisco Collaboration Summit: Mobility is Still a Side Show

Cisco should be beating the pants off of the other guys. They have the fullest line-up of wireless, UC, and collaboration, but seem unable to get their left and right feet to work in tandem.

With Cisco's Collaboration Summit in San Francisco it's clear that collaboration is now taking center stage in the Cisco worldview while Unified Communications is taking a back seat. Cisco introduced a head-spinning 61 product announcements, and every analyst in attendance seemed to have latched onto a different capability. What is clear is that Cisco intends to be a major player and collaboration will be a big tent that encompasses inter-company TelePresence, WebEx/video integration, and social networking tools that will link together the various communication modalities.While not unique to Cisco, the two capabilities that struck me were Show and Share and Pulse. The former allows users to record, edit and share video with comments, and a speech-to-text capability that makes the content searchable. Pulse is a search platform that provides dynamic tagging of content (emails, text, videos) as it traverses the network, allowing users who are working in the same areas to find each other.

Cisco did have a few announcements in mobility, but they were far from earth-shattering. Their line-up of new IP desk sets includes the 9971 video phone that runs on Wi-Fi rather than the traditional wired Ethernet. The idea is that you can install a handset in an area that has Wi-Fi coverage but lacks wired connections; you do need a local AC power source, however. Mitel has had a Wi-Fi base that can allow any of their phones to operate over a WLAN network, and can also act as a Wi-Fi access point for nearby devices. If I ever find an installation that calls for it, I'll let you know.

They also announced a new version of the Unified Mobile Communicator client for the iPhone. The features are similar to those previously found on the BlackBerry, Nokia, and Windows Mobile versions, but the iPhone has obviously caught their attention. This fascination with "bright, shiny objects" is not necessarily in synch with enterprise mobility best practices, as Apple has yet to deliver a truly functional security capability on the iPhone. Cisco was demonstrating the voice over Wi-Fi capability, but device's design quirks make it a little flaky. The iPhone shuts down applications on receiving a cellular call, so if someone called your mobile number, a Wi-Fi call in progress would disconnect.

The one thing that really struck me as odd was that while Cisco wanted to talk about voice over Wi-Fi using the iPhone, their own line of voice over WLAN phones was never mentioned. Last May, that part of Cisco announced a major new architecture for their wireless products called Cisco Motion. As there have been virtually no significant announcements resulting from it for the past 18-months; we've renamed it the "Slow Motion Architecture." The capabilities included location, which could have a major impact on UC features like presence and mobile communications-enabled business processes. However, they don't seem to be capitalizing on them for their UC initiatives.

This lack of leading edge mobility solutions from Cisco is rather distressing. Of all of the IP PBX/UC vendors, only Cisco and Siemens have products that cover this many spots in the enterprise mobility space, from WLAN switches to voice over WLAN handsets (i.e. 7921 and 7925), and mobile UC clients. However, Cisco's VoWLAN handsets don't do anything more than the generic Polycom/SpectraLink ones the other PBX vendors resell. Their Unified Mobile Communicator client doesn't do much more than the ones from Siemens, NEC, or even ShoreTel. Cisco does have a strategic alliance with Nokia, but that's not going to get you too far on this continent.

The thing is that Cisco should be beating the pants off of these guys. They have the fullest line-up of wireless, UC, and collaboration products, but they seem unable to get their left and right feet to work in tandem. Maybe they should try that Pulse product to find out who in the company is working on a mobility strategy!

Conclusion I've decided that the best job in enterprise mobility is "speechwriter." That's because all of the vendors want to talk about mobility without doing much to actually develop compelling products that integrate the desktop and mobile unified communications experience.

Without a doubt, significant developments in the enterprise mobility market will be impaired by the close-mindedness and unwavering consumer focus of the mobile operators. However, Cisco is one of the few companies with the mass and product capabilities to have an impact on the carriers. Cisco has single-handedly changed the enterprise outlook on video; it would be nice to see them put some of that Cisco muscle behind mobility.Cisco should be beating the pants off of the other guys. They have the fullest line-up of wireless, UC, and collaboration, but seem unable to get their left and right feet to work in tandem.