On the Edge of Connected Experiences with Connected Devices

The Webex for Inclusive Collaboration series focuses on delivering capabilities for the future of work with inclusive, effective collaboration tools

Connected Devices to Deliver Connected Experiences

To say that the world of work is changing at a rapid pace is a bold understatement. A year ago, a statement like this might have been reasonable; however, the speed of which we are seeing the workplace evolve these days is unrivaled. And the speed of innovation required to meet this evolution is largely enabled and made possible by the agility of the cloud. In my personal life, I couldn’t imagine this past year without my connected devices to stream my favorite shows. My professional life should be no different. We need to support a hybrid workplace and a truly dispersed workforce – where work is not where you are but what you do. The best way to support this is through connected devices and software that deliver connected experiences.

A Dispersed Workforce in the Office

So how does that get done? I’ve seen it in Oslo where about 30% of our people are back in the office. I can tell you that a key part of the success in our hybrid workplace and dispersed workforce is through  giving IT an easy way to manage, onboard, and troubleshoot the devices we use daily to get stuff done – no matter where we work. They need access to real-time data and analytics into how the devices are being used so that they can optimize accordingly. In addition to IT, our employees in various lines of business need consistency regardless of where they work from. They need devices and applications that deliver the rich feature sets required for this, and they need it regardless of their device deployment.

Native Meeting Experiences

Last year, we released Webex Edge for Devices with our CE 9.10 software release for Webex Rooms. This enabled administrators to easily link their on-premises registered devices to the Webex Platform delivering an enhanced feature set which included device analytics and diagnostics for on-premise deployed rooms. Webex Edge for Devices is bringing the most modern experience of Webex to any device regardless of how it’s being deployed today.

At Cisco, we believe in choice and flexibility. That’s why we are so excited to offer another stepping stone towards the full cloud experience with Native Webex Meeting Experience for Webex Edge for Devices. This new development allows you to enjoy features in a Webex meeting that were previously only available for devices with full cloud deployment – all while protecting your on-premises infrastructure investments.

In essence, when you enable Native Webex Meeting Experience for Webex Edge for Devices, you get the same features as cloud-registered devices when you are in a Webex meeting. By turning this on, you are unlocking a much richer collaboration experience and allowing your employees to experience co-creation features such as multiway whiteboarding, stickies and annotation on shared content. You are also allowing the people in your organization to get to know each other better through face recognition with name labels and titles. Additionally, you get access to advanced host controls and mute capabilities, making meetings run more seamlessly.

Your Personal Life is Already There – So Should Your Professional

As you begin returning to the office, if you haven’t already, these experiences are critical to not only employee productivity, but more importantly, their well-being and job satisfaction. We use the cloud in our personal lives every day from listening to music to binge-watching a series all on connected devices. With security, scalability, and manageability, our professional lives can do the same, and now, we’ve made that even easier with Native Webex Meeting Experience for Webex Edge for Devices.

Wondering how to get started on your journey to the cloud with Webex Edge for Devices? We’ve made it easy for you.

Check out our cloud adoption journey, custom-designed to take the complexity out of every step, and get you to where you want to be.

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What’s new in Webex: March 2021

Enabling Smart Hybrid Work Experiences — For Everyone, Anywhere

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