by Suman Gupta
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Webex velocity of innovation continues, introducing more than 800 new features and devices since September.
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All-new Webex Suite, including a new look and feel, supports hybrid work collaboration at 40 percent lower cost than a-la-carte.
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The integration of Slido’s audience engagement capabilities and soon Socio’s hybrid event management tools provide the most comprehensive events platform for any physical, virtual or hybrid event.
India, June , 2021 — As the world transitions to hybrid, organizations require solutions that are flexible, supportive and inclusive. Today, Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) unveiled an all-new Webex Suite with innovations to serve as the foundation for inclusive hybrid work and events, delivering unmatched levels of flexibility and personalization for everyone.
With 98 percent of future meetings expected to include at least one remote participant, this mixed mode of working (blending remote and in-person interactions) is fueling long-lasting implications on work culture, event engagement and technology. This requires investing more broadly – beyond the traditional conference room – to fundamentally reimagine the new requirements of hybrid events and a hybrid workforce. The way organizations worked pre-pandemic and during the pandemic will be starkly different in this next wave of work – where good enough is simply not enough.
“Cisco’s collaboration business is incredibly essential to our customers,” said Chuck Robbins, CEO, Cisco. “With all the integrations the team has added – 800 new features and devices since September – we truly have the most comprehensive meetings, calling, messaging, and event management solution on the market powering the future of hybrid work.”
“To be successful in the era of hybrid work, organizations need to make sure their solutions are flexible, inclusive, supportive, secure, and easily managed on the backend by IT,” said Jeetu Patel, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco Security and Collaboration. “The all-new Webex Suite ensures everyone in a hybrid workforce has equal opportunity and voice.”
New Webex advancements include:
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Increased Value: The all-new Webex Suite is the industry’s first suite for hybrid work to combine meetings, calling, messaging, polling and events in one offering for up to 40 percent less than a-la-carte. The new Webex identity and logo unveiled today were reinvented to reflect the powerful purpose and value Webex brings to the market, its customers and people’s lives.
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End-to-End Events: A complete events execution and management platform necessary in the next era of hybrid events. Full capabilities of the industry’s first end-to-end event experience at scale will become available upon completion of Cisco’s Socio acquisition.
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Audience Interaction Tools: Polling, quizzes, Q&A and more powered by Slido, is the industry’s first audience engagement solution to be integrated across all collaboration experiences. Polling is available now in Meetings and will be coming soon to Events.
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Audio Intelligence: Building upon Webex’s market-leading noise removal and speech enhancement capabilities, users will have the new ability of speech optimization for remote and shared workspaces through My Voice Only to eliminate background noise, including speech from people in the background, and solely focus on the main speaker’s speech. My Voice Only will be available worldwide in August 2021.
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Camera Intelligence: People Focus, announced earlier this year, is coming to Webex in 2021. People Focus uses machine learning and AI technology to individually re-frame meeting participants who are spread across a meeting room allowing remote participants to feel more connected and everyone in the meeting to benefit from seeing body language, facial expressions and more.
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Next-level Devices: The Webex Desk provides a powerful all-in-one collaboration device designed for the desk at work or home. Immersive collaboration experiences will also be available with modern touch interactions via RoomOS that connects workflows with less context switching, as well as Webex Assistant Skills platform that opens up a universe of voice-powered extensions to seamlessly and easily integrate more controls, content and applications for Webex Devices.
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Secure Experiences: Real-time data loss prevention for Webex, which automatically blocks and removes confidential information, will be available in Messaging. With this real-time data loss prevention, users are prohibited from posting classified content rather than redacting or deleting content after it is posted. Additionally, European Webex customers will be able to host and process their content within the EU. Webex users will also benefit from our strengthened end-to-end encryption options, including augmenting our end-to-end encryption with end-to-end verified identity. In other words, customers will not have to choose between usability and security, they get both.
Additional Resources
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Comes on the heels of Cisco announcing its partnership with Thrive Global to promote well-being, resiliency, and empathy at work.
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Cisco recently announced its intent to acquire Socio Labs, which is expected to close in Q4 2021.
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Ushering in the era of hybrid work by Cisco’s Jeetu Patel
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Launching new innovations for the era of hybrid work by Cisco’s Javed Khan
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What’s New in Webex: June 2021 by Cisco’s Phil Polishuk
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Unveiling Webex Suite – Driving Hybrid Work by Cisco’s Aruna Ravichandran
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How Webex is creating bigger and better experiences for a new hybrid world by Cisco’s Abhay Kulkarni
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Introducing the Webex Suite: A collaboration offer designed for the hybrid workplace by Chris Barwick
Pricing and Availability
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Webex Suite is available today and will be priced at 40 percent lower than a-la-carte.
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Webex Desk will be available to order later this month at the Cisco suggested resale price of $1249 for customers and a standard price of $2495.
