Last week we got the news about Microsoft’s plans and offerings for the hotly contested unified communications market. This week, it is Cisco’s turn.
John Chambers, the CEO of Cisco, said his company has a three-year lead in this space and when given such a lead in the past the networking giant has never lost.
However, if you compare Cisco’s channel network to the 600,000 worldwide solution providers that have drank the Microsoft koolaid you can easily see why Chambers and his channel chief, Keith Goodwin, need to be smart and careful with their next move in this space.
Looking at some of the demonstrations here at Networkers at Cisco Live in Anaheim, Calif., partners and customers can see that Cisco’s offering is more sophisticated than Microsoft’s.
Take, for example, what Cisco is doing for the Oakland A’s baseball club, which is currently building a new baseball stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. According to Chambers, with the new park the A’s could not compete with the New York Yankees, which outpace them in revenue by a five to one margin.
Cisco is wiring the A’s new ballpark in an attempt to enhance the business model for the team that has not won a World Series championship in 18 years.
“We are going to upgrade tickets automatically for them. Tell you when the next pitch is, replay it and send it to misguided Yankee fans across the country,” Chambers said.
With this technology, Cisco wants to implement this unified communications system for any new stadium being built around the world. “Watch what you want, when you want to and with whom you want to,” promised Chambers.
He believes this vision is entirely possible because Internet traffic has grown dramatically in the last ten years. He added that 10 connected homes today produce the same amount of traffic the entire Internet did in 1995 and most of that content is for entertainment purposes. This entertainment content, through unified communications, will be traveling with you where ever you go.
Chambers demonstrated what the company is doing with regular hotel stays. People will be able to forward PVR content to hotel rooms along with receiving their room key on a handheld device that can unlock the door.
The hotel will be able to detect if you have checked in and provide you with an eco-friendly room with desired lighting, music, home TV channel line up and temperature.If you are in Las Vegas, you can reserve a table to play Texas Hold’em poker.
The magic mirror
Cisco unified communications is also changing flat panel displays for digital signage. For example, the same digital pictures that are on display in your home can be on display in your hotel room.
The mirror in your hotel room will not only display your reflection but also deliver the news through streaming video, design a wellness program for you, enable you to change your breakfast options, see you aging parents to make sure they are following up on their healthcare routines, get messages from the office, and even call up the concierge for restaurant recommendations.
Further to that, the concierge can then relay you to the executive chef where he or she via Telepresence technology shows you the menu and the daily specials.
Then you can pay for your room and incidentals on your handheld without ever seeing or talking to front desk personnel.
These demonstrations are far cry from Microsoft’s of the past week where they showed video calls using old Nortel handsets.
This is very space age I know but channel partners should get ready for this and develop concepts that can personalize the back-end IP network.
The market opportunity in hospitality is an obvious one, but it can translate easily into retail where stores can link up with product specialists who can answer customer questions on the spot.
