back to article Cisco promises Lync link for its UC kit and collaborationware

Cisco has spent the last couple of years talking up its unified communications and collaboration portfolios, often suggesting it is at the top of the market. If that assertion is correct it would be quite a coup, given that other players have a long head start. Cisco's been here before with IP telephony, a field in which it …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Cisco + collaboration standards?

    Cisco's "collaboration" platform is just repackaged Polycom or Tanberg.

    All the TMS stuff and the plethora of endpoints (MX-60, MX-90, and SX-20) are rebadged Tanberg.

    The conferencing deskphone has always been a rebadged Polycom.

    Cisco's idea of of extending standards is use existing competitors products as rebadges and slap Cisco pricing and licensing on top.

    Anon: since I resell Cisco :)

    1. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

      Re: Cisco + collaboration standards?

      To be fair, all of Cisco's collaboration kit started out as a buy in. Cisco didn't write CallManager, etc.

      What Cisco are doing, is buying all these products in and gluing them together.

      Oh, and you do know the 7937 (Polycom based conference phone) is now End Of Sale and has been replaced by the 8831 (Cisco designed)...

  2. Christian Berger

    Cisco leading in the VoIP market?

    I'm sorry, but working at a company which actually does VoIP I haven't even seen VoIP equipment from them. It's not even an issue in interoperability testing. Virtually nobody seems to use them. What I do see are phones from Snom and Aastra, VoIP to ISDN gateways from AVM and Patton, as well as the odd packaged PBX which usually is an Asterisk.

    In the backend there is no Cisco except for Routers.

    Even in other companies I've seen the market share of Cisco seems to be even below the one of Microsoft. And I don't see it growing with all the bugdoors inside.

    BTW quite a lot of companies are looking into Lync connectivity since it can be implemented with some effort and standard SIP software. The question is if it will be worth the effort. It might be a mistake, just like basing your web services on IE6.

    1. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

      Re: Cisco leading in the VoIP market?

      Cisco doesn't play in the low-end VoIP arena (Well, they try to with CallManager Express, but..) They're strength is in the larger arena e.g. 1K+ endpoints. (Out of the box it scales to 40K endpoints and CallManager can scale to 100K+ endpoints if you ask Cisco nicely)

      Is Cisco as cheap as Snom, Asterix, etc? No.

      With Cisco, you're paying for the management ecosystem, in built high availability and access to their 24x7 support (Which, when your system is down, actually works!)

      Most of the handsets are quite nice too. (Well, we'll forget about the 69xx series - something Cisco are trying to do very quickly too!)

      Disclaimer: I run a large CallManager system.

      1. M. B.

        Re: Cisco leading in the VoIP market?

        As a reseller, we've had great success with the Business Edition 6000 systems, even smaller companies are buying into them (~100 seats). Not so much below that, we tend to stick with Adtran in tiny environments (as opposed to CME).

  3. karlp

    Makes Sense

    To be completely serious, the amount of Lync I have seen showing up lately makes this a no brainer.

    Particularly with 2013, the software from an end-user perspective is quite featured and easy to use.

    The fact that it is coming bundled into O365 "E" Suites without needing 4 or 5 boxen isn't hurting either.

  4. Charlie Clark Silver badge

    Anecdote

    One of my corporate customers has had some kind of Cisco plugin for Lync on it from the word go. AFAIK, this is already tied into the Cisco sets on the desk.

    1. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

      Re: Anecdote

      That could be the Jabber presence stuff. That comes with a Lync connector out of the box,

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Anecdote

        CUCILync

        Already exists but leaves the Lync client to do it's IM&P etc allowing CTI functions and call integration with UCM for voice/video/SNR and others. This 'update' should allow Jabber (Cisco IM&P) clients to talk directly and share desktop with Lync clients. It would be useful as have experience with large company A using Jabber and purchasing company B who uses Lync - this would save a lot of trouble during integration of two businesses...

    2. TheVogon

      Re: Anecdote

      "One of my corporate customers has had some kind of Cisco plugin for Lync on it from the word go. AFAIK, this is already tied into the Cisco sets on the desk."

      That would be 'CUCI Lync' - one of the IT world's worst integration bodge jobs - and really only suitable for a temporary transition period. Tell them to dump it at the next refresh and move completely to Lync ASAP. They wont look back...

      Worth noting that Lync is already used by more than 90 percent of the Fortune 100.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    But in IP telephony it worked, mostly, with standards.

    Cough, Splutter..what??????

    SKINNY anyone?

    Getting earlier Cisco phones to run any sort of SIP standard was such f**king hard work, we just flogged them and bought lovely compliant Aastra's instead.

    Can't comment on later ones, I just see a nice IP phone with a 50% mark up for the badge.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Late to the party

    Once again Cisco are late to the party.

    Several other companies already support Lync to Cisco calling along with support for many other vendors. Interoperability is always an afterthought for Cisco.

  7. J. Cook Silver badge
    Trollface

    I was going to say: even though cisco helps write some of the standards, it only follows them when it's profitable for them.

    Their SIP phones are ok, but getting them to play with anything *but* call manager is an exercise in hair pulling.

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