Partners: New WebEx Shows Cisco's Commitment To Revitalizing Collab Business

Cisco rolled out a refreshed version of WebEx Monday that partners say underscore its recent commitment to reinventing itself in the collaboration arena.

The new WebEx, available now in North America, updates Cisco's cloud-based conferencing service with a redesigned user interface, HD video and the ability to interoperate with a broader range of third-party conferencing systems.

But, as one of several major releases from Cisco's collaboration team this year, the new version of WebEx, more than anything, shows that the networking giant is serious about rethinking collaboration, Cisco partners told CRN.

[Related: Cisco Continues Collaboration Blitz With New All-In-One Desktop Devices, Hosted Meeting Service]

"The set of products that have come out over the last six to eight months -- it's just been a total refresh," said Matt Rehm, director of the strategic technology group, collaboration, at Presidio, a Greenbelt, Maryland-based Cisco Gold partner. "We have never had a more exciting portfolio of [collaboration] products from Cisco."

In addition redesigning WebEx, Cisco this year unveiled an updated line of its video endpoints, a new version of its Business Edition unified communications platform, its DX80 and DX70 desktop collaboration devices and Collaboration Meeting Rooms (CMR), a cloud-based meeting room service that integrates with the new version of WebEx.

Rehm attributed Cisco's newfound focus on collaboration to Rowan Trollope, a former Symantec executive who became senior vice president and general manager of Cisco's collaboration business in November 2012.

"The breath of fresh air Rowan Trollope has brought the collaboration group has just been amazing," Rehm said.

Robert Bellmar, executive vice president of conferencing and collaboration at InterCall, a Chicago-based Cisco partner and subsidiary of telecommunications service provider giant West Corporation, applauded Trollope's focus on really elevating the user experience with Cisco collaboration tools.

"I think they are really reinvigorating the portfolio, and I really like Rowan's push toward experience-centric collaboration," Bellmar said. "What we've realized is that, in the early days, it used to be about selling to the IT buyers, but now, it's really about the experience of the users."

Rehm, for his part, described the new WebEx as the "glue" that will pull together a number of diverse conferencing systems and devices. The updated service, for instance, is interoperable with any standards-based videoconferencing system, including those from non-Cisco vendors like Polycom or Lifesize, and can be accessed via a range of devices, such as PCs, tablets and smartphones.

Bellmar agreed, noting that this expanded interoperability, coupled with the new CMR functionality, will help Cisco go toe-to-toe with a growing group of starts-up offering videoconferencing services in the cloud.

"For a while, Cisco had a closed ecosystem, or a very capital-intensive ecosystem," Bellmar said. "This flips that over and makes it very opex-centric and focused on cloud."

The new WebEx is also easier to navigate and launch than previous generations of the service, Rehm and Bellmar said. Users, for example, create their own personal meeting room -- a feature available through CMR -- with one touch of a button, regardless of the device.

"I have been working with these technologies for a long, long time and the promise of [conferencing from] 'the coffee shop to the boardroom' has always been talked about. But this is really the first time it's happening," Rehm said.

WebEx for the first time also supports high-definition video and gives users more freedom to customize the look of the service. A capability called "liquid screen," for example, lets users re-size the videoconferencing window, along with any documents or slides being shared via the service, on the fly.

Cisco has also enabled "high fidelity voice over IP (VoIP)," a feature it says gives voice calls made over PCs the same level of quality users get when using an actual phone.

Richard McLeod, senior director of Cisco's Worldwide Collaboration Channel Sales, said Cisco is offering a free 90-day trial of the new WebEx for any customers currently licensing its Business Edition 6000 unified communication platform. The free trial covers up to 10 WebEx licenses.

McLeod said partners are more enthusiastic than ever about Cisco's position in the collaboration market.

"The enthusiasm is incredible. [Partners] are really excited about the new things we are announcing and how they are reinventing the conversations they can have with their customers," McLeod said.

PUBLISHED OCT. 6, 2014