RE: "I'll just assume you originally meant ... Cisco's VoIP products aren't very competitive"
No, no, nothing that bad. Cisco has superb VoIP products. Excellent quality. They would be my #1 pick in enterprise. Only one small user aspect of Cisco's phones are CIOs displacing what Cisco has programmed in their handsets, with user standards from the cellular industry. Without the cellular companies even knowing. At first glance it's puzzling because Cisco's user logic is better, but then one realizes it's a perfectly normal thing for CIOs to do - they do what their workforce is familiar with, not what is better. CIOs would be the first to admit Cisco user logic is better, but it doesn't matter to them. It's interesting to see the consumer world encroach on enterprise, without even trying to do so.
This makes it rather clear that enterprise needs to be more on the ball with mobile.
This small scenario suggests a larger concept at play, basically Cisco as well as all enterprise players have a rather large blind spot - having a better solution may not win even from a super huge enterprise company such as Cisco, familiarity wins. Consumer volume wins. Use it, or lose it.
But once Microsoft steps up their mobile deployments, any encroachment from consumers into enterprise would be something all players in enterprise prefer. Of course, if Microsoft doesn't CIOs could simply do what their users may become more familiar with - which could leave both Cisco and Microsoft out, should a 3rd player establish better consumer familiarity. I'm speaking conceptually when generalizing the specific scenario above. Extrapolating it and one can sense this weakspot could be a too perfect entry from even a firm seemingly unrelated like Google or someone else.
So, I keenly will be watching for aggressive improvements from Microsoft on mobile deployment and overall improvement in enterprise interactive mobility.
RE: "Standards? To me, standards means specs like IS-56 (CDMA), IS-2000 (CDMA2000), and 802.11g (Wi-Fi)."
I would call those technology standards, not user standards. Users will force enterprise to be subservient to anything mobile. Historically, it was the reverse, where enterprise defined standards that eventually consumer land adopted. Enterprise historically lead consumer design and development, but the power has reversed. (Sigh)
Consumer land has a beach head into enterprise, they could potentially exploit.
Regards,
Amy J |
