Cisco is unveiling its Jabber application, which essentially will enable business users to communicate with others via whatever method they choose, and whatever device or platform they want.
Cisco
Systems officials say they have found a way to unite the myriad ways, devices
and platforms people use to communicate in business.
At
the Enterprise Connect 2011 show in Orlando, Fla., March 1, Cisco officials
unveiled Jabber, a UC (unified communications) application that links such
communications avenues as instant messaging, voice, video, conferencing and
desktop sharing, and doing so across a range of devices, including Macs, PCs,
smartphones and tablets.
The
Jabber application, which will first roll out to Mac users in the second
quarter, can work on-premise or in a cloud computing environment, and will
integrate with such collaboration and productivity tools as Microsoft's Office
applications and Cisco's Unified IP Phones, WebEx MeetingCenter and
TelePresence endpoints.
Such
flexibility and platform support is crucial in a world where a larger number of
workers are going mobile, and where they have an increasingly wide range of
devices and platforms to choose from, according to Laurent Philonenko, vice
president and general manager of Cisco's Unified Communications business unit.
Cisco's Jabber is a way to bring all these disparate communications modes and
platforms together to fuel collaboration.
"It's
very important [to support] multiple platforms, whether it be PCs or tablets or
smartphones," Philonenko said in an interview with eWEEK. "The world is going
mobile in different ways."
Jabber-
Cisco
acquired the technology with its 2008 acquisition of Jabber Inc.-also is a
key step in Cisco's efforts to support any form of enterprise communications on
any platform, he said. It supports or will support Macs and Windows-based PCs,
tablets such as Apple's iPad,
Samsung's
Galaxy Tab or its
own
Cius tablets, and smartphone platforms such as Apple's iPhone, Research In
Motion's BlackBerry family, Nokia and devices running Google's Android
operating system.
The
application is designed to let business employees quickly and securely find the
right person they want to contact, determine where they are and on what type of
device they can be contacted, and then to collaborate through whatever
method-IM, video conferencing, chat, voice, etc.-and device they desire.
Jabber
For Mac will offer presence and IM, voice, visual voicemail, desktop sharing
and conferencing, with video coming in the quarter, according to Cisco. Jabber
For Nokia builds on existing features, including offering a single client for
on-premise or cloud software, and Jabber For Android offer voice-over-WiFi,
single-number capabilities and mid-call controls.
Cisco
also is offering a WebEx Meeting Center for Android devices, which will enable
WebEx meetings on the smartphones.
In
addition, Jabber is based on the XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence
Protocol), which will enable the application to run on multiple IM
applications, including those from Google, IBM, Microsoft and AOL.
Overall,
Jabber will extend Cisco's coverage of devices and platforms, Philonenko said.
In the first half of 2011, Cisco will bring presence and IM capabilities to the
iPad and BlackBerry and Nokia smartphones, while the second half of the year
will bring video to Macs, presence and IM to the iPhone and Android-based
smartphones, visual voice messages to the Cius tablet and Android devices.
Philonenko
said Cisco officials have been vocal about extending their communicatons
capabilities across a wide range of devices and platforms. Jabber proves that
"we've been true to that promise," he said.
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