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September 19, 2005
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Cisco is introducing two packages; one designed for companies with 20 to 250 employees and one for businesses with 250 to 1,500 employees.
"Cisco never really had SMB products before," says Yankee Group analyst Zeus Kerravala. "They mainly offered smaller versions of their enterprise products. These new packages include a low-priced box and an easier to configure interface than they've ever offered before."
Cisco Business Communications Solution system for SMB customers with 20 to 250 employees is based on the new Cisco Catalyst Express 500 switch and the IP Communications Express Solution featuring Cisco CallManager Express and Cisco Unity Express within the Cisco Integrated Services Router (ISR).
The Cisco Catalyst Express 500 Series switches are built specifically for businesses who want to run converged networks. As a family of wire-speed Layer 2-managed Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet switches, it provides a security-enabled network foundation optimized for data, wireless and voice. Together with the Cisco Network Assistant 3.0 application, customers and partners now can quickly and easily configure their networks and enable advanced technologies such as wireless LANs and IP Communications in a solution purpose-built for the SMB.
One of the biggest surprises is that Cisco eliminated the command-line interface, which is used to type in commands to set up and manage most Cisco products, and replaced it in the small-business system with a browser-based management system.
"This is the first-ever product in our switching line that doesn't have a command-line interface," says Julie O'Brien, senior manager of product and technology marketing for Cisco IP Communications. "The Network Assistant manages everything, which makes it very easy and straightforward to configure."
For companies with 250 to 1500 employees, the Cisco Business Communications Solution features enhancements to a comprehensive mid-market portfolio based on Cisco CallManager and a host of new smart, simple and secure IP Communications applications such as Cisco MeetingPlace Express, Mobile Connect, Unity Connection and management tools:
While the business objectives of SMB and mid-market customers may vary, they each require increased protection for their business assets, 24-hour uptime, reduced operating costs, higher productivity and better responsiveness to customers," said Mika Krammer, SMB research vice president, Gartner, Inc.. "Savvy SMB and mid-market customers realize that products alone won't address their needs. Rather, they need a holistic solution that will allow them to focus on running their business, instead of having to systems-integrate their own products, services and financing."
-- Cisco MeetingPlace Express - a voice and Web conferencing solution that makes it easy and affordable for medium-sized organizations to realize the cost savings and productivity benefits of deploying conferencing over internal networks. Its functions can be extended to Cisco IP phones to where users can initiate, join and manage their meetings.
-- Cisco Mobile Connect - a new product available for Cisco CallManager users who want to consolidate all their business calls with a single IP phone number connected to multiple devices, such as mobile, desk and home office phones, and immediately connect wherever they are. Mobile workers can continue a call on their IP desk phone after they arrive at the office and take advantage of any IP phone services.
-- Cisco Unity Connection - an easy to deploy and manage Web browser-based voice-messaging system with integrated messaging, speech recognition and call routing rules with robust automated-attendant functions such as intelligent routing and easily customizable call-screening and message notification options.
-- Cisco Voice Provisioning Tool, CiscoWorks IPC Operations Manager and Services Monitor - powerful, simple and easy to use Web browser-based tools used for provisioning, monitoring and reporting of the entire Cisco IP Communications portfolio.
"What's appealing about this offering is that it's not a skinny-downed version of their big products, it's a more tailored version that's specific for this market," says Krammer.
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