Cisco joins video interoperability group

Putting action behind its words, Cisco in the week joined the Open Visual Communications association (OVCC), a bunch of seller and repair suppliers endorsing ability between multivendor video conferencing and collaboration systems. Cisco joined the organization as a member.

Cisco has been terribly vocal regarding video ability these days. It’s appealing the eu Union’s approval of Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype till Microsoft pledges ability with different vendors’ video gear, and shows some proof points behind it.

Cisco had to try and do constant once it noninheritable Tandberg in 2009, surrendering the Telepresence ability Protocol to the business at massive as a condition for closing on the Tandberg get.

Microsoft is additionally a member of OVCC.

Joining Cisco as a member of OVCC in the week is AVI-SPL, associate degree installer of video collaboration systems and supplier of managed conferencing services. Canadian telecommunication large TELUS additionally joined OVCC, transfer the group’s membership to twenty seven eight months once its launch.

OVCC members ar developing technical and industrial ability specifications supported business standards, best practices and business approaches. These specification aim to outline interconnection, addressing, signaling, ability and repair coordination among myriad multivendor video systems, from high definition and customary definition telepresence and room-based systems, to desktop purchasers and mobile devices.

The first OVCC services ar regular to launch later this year.

Separately, Cisco in the week additionally extended unharness nine.0 of its Unified Communications platform, that broadens device and site access support for Cisco collaboration tools.

A new feature known as Extend and Connect works with Cisco Jabber and is intended to bring any third-party phone – as well as those at hotels, airports, convention centers, offshore oil rigs or cruise ships – into the Cisco UC setting. Telecommuters and business travelers input the signaling of their most popular voice device into a Jabber consumer running on their Windows laptop, and Cisco’s Unified Communications Manager (UCM) routes all voice traffic thereto phone — as long because the phone is connected to a phonephone line. Extend and Connect is meant to change that third-party phone to operate as a Cisco phone.

Users of mobile phones, meanwhile, have access to additional desk-phone-like options with unharness nine.0 while not the requirement of a smartphone, an information arrange, or a mobile consumer put in on the phone. Cisco says options like unified inbox, message waiting, callback, conferencing and direct-extension dialing ar currently out there through a replacement interface that ties UCM with the user’s mobile service supplier.

For video, Release 9.0 includes improved information measure management via a constitutional implementation of decision Admission management, that manages traffic to assist optimize. It additionally supports Cisco’s recently declared TelePresence TX9000 end. Release 9.0 additionally permits users to succeed in any end within the system by dialing a contact’s email address in function of a conventional signaling.

Release 9.0 additionally embody options to assist businesses implement and manage contact centers. prepacked Contact Center Enterprise provides a pre-engineered, prepacked readying model of Cisco’s enterprise contact center package designed for easier implementation. exactness Routing for Unified Contact Center Enterprise permits contact centers to drive call-routing selections that higher match client desires with agent attributes and competencies. And unharness nine.0 adds historical coverage to Cisco Unified Contact Center specific, furthermore as net chat and agent talent management from a supervisor’s mobile device.

Release 9.0 additionally supports native decision queuing, therefore in-bound callers and teams of callers may be mechanically placed on hold and routed into a queue; One Button to Record, permitting users to start out or stop decision recording directly from associate degree endpoint; user-centric licensing supported four distinct kinds of employees: deskless workers, desk-bound employees, often mobile employees and road warriors; and Unified space Licensing Premium Edition, that adds Cisco Jabber Mobile to the collaboration package.

Release 9.0 is targeted for third quarter availableness. Extend and Connect needs each unharness nine.0 furthermore as Cisco Jabber nine.1. Cisco Jabber nine.1 is regular to be out there within the fourth quarter.