I’m thrilled that we’re able to return to an in-person Cisco Live event in Europe this year. With registrations sold out weeks before the event, it looks like many of you share my enthusiasm. Cisco Live gives the Webex Calling team an opportunity to meet you, our Cisco customers and partners, to understand your business needs and challenges. Every one of these interactions helps to guide our innovations and build a collaboration roadmap that will drive growth for your businesses in the future.
During our last Cisco Live Europe event in 2021, we highlighted the agility, scalability, and administrative simplicity that enables Webex Calling to adapt to the quickly evolving requirements of hybrid work. But we also learned that many of our customers were wary of the cloud due to concerns of complex migrations, downtime, and the potential loss of features.
Today, I’m excited that the Webex Calling team has eliminated many of the longstanding barriers to the cloud. Webex Calling migrations are now easier, less disruptive, and more flexible than ever before. We’ve also enhanced Webex Calling with more features that our UCM customers need. This progress is reflected in our numbers – the Webex Calling installed base has more than doubled since 2021. I’d like to highlight a few reasons why so many customers have made the move to Webex Calling.
Simplifying cloud migrations
The benefits of the cloud are mitigated by migrations that are costly, complex, time consuming, or result in downtime. To overcome these barriers, we’ve invested in tools and features that enable UCM customers to move easily to the cloud quickly and without business disruption.
Dedicated Instance for Webex Calling provides a flexible path to the cloud without business disruption. With Dedicated Instance, customers get a private, dedicated cloud instance of UCM, enabling a phased migration to the cloud while maintaining investments in Cisco IP phones, workflows, integrations, and survivability solutions.
Control Hub is our single-pane-of-glass administration tool for all Webex services. We’ve made it easier to make the move to Webex Calling by building migration tools directly into Control Hub. From our new Control Hub migration screen, UCM customers can:
- Migrate UCM users to Webex Calling
- Migrate enterprise Cisco phones to MPP firmware
- Migrate Jabber users to the Webex App
These wizard-driven tools make it simple for UCM customers to make the move to Webex Calling in minutes, not days.
PSTN options: PSTN connectivity is a critical component of any phone system. PSTN requirements vary widely, and we’ve developed three flexible options for PSTN connectivity, which can be selected by location to make migrations to the cloud simpler and more cost effective.
Local Gateway is an ideal option for customers migrating to Webex Calling from UCM. Local Gateway gives customers the flexibility to continue using their existing service provider in 120+ markets worldwide, eliminating costly contract termination fees.
Cloud Connect for Webex Calling is regulatory compliant, cloud-based PSTN replacement delivered through 20+ Certified Calling Providers that have been rigorously tested to ensure compatibility with Webex Calling (multi-tenant and Dedicated Instance) and Webex Contact Center. Cloud Connect is available in over 65 countries, including coverage throughout Europe from 10 Certified Calling Providers.
Cisco Calling Plans is a PSTN replacement that enables customers to easily procure and manage phone numbers directly from Control Hub. Cisco Calling Plans is available in 19 countries, including much of Europe, directly from Cisco.
To learn more about Webex Calling migrations contact us or join us at the Planning and Designing Successful Cloud Calling Deployments with Webex Calling: BRKCOL-2787 – on Tuesday, Feb 7 at 5:00pm CET.
Complete cloud calling feature set
Many of our customers have built calling workflows around UCM and can’t sacrifice these tools to move to the cloud. We’ve invested heavily to not only bring premises features to Webex Calling, but to also improve on these features with the power of the cloud.
Site Survivability: For many businesses, calling is mission-critical, and the risk of any downtime poses an insurmountable barrier to the cloud. Our Site Survivability feature for Webex Calling provides these customers with confidence that calling will always be available.
Multi line support: Our premises customers have long enjoyed the multi-line and shared-line capabilities of UCM and Jabber. We’re excited to announce that we’ve brought multi line support to Webex Calling. Our users can now make and receive calls from multiple lines, shared lines, or groups from the Webex App or Cisco IP phones, without the need for additional licenses. Multi line support also takes advantage of our new multi call window user experience, which makes it easy to manage multiple lines from a new, streamline user interface.
Group Call Management: Our Cisco UCM customers love Unified Contact Center Express (UCCX). This call center is perfect for small teams, and it’s included out-of-the-box with the Business Edition.
To learn more about these Webex Calling features contact us or visit the Work from Office space in the Hybrid Work area.
Cloud-powered innovation
Webex Cloud Calling makes new innovations, features, and technology accessible to our customers instantly, without the need for server updates or downtime. Our cloud innovations enable businesses to be more agile – a characteristic that was critical over the past few years of rapidly evolving hybrid work. Here are just a few of our latest cloud innovations.
Webex Go is our industry-first solution that enables users to make business calls from the native dialer on their personal mobile phone. With Webex Go, businesses can execute BYOD policies at scale, while ensuring that calls are secure, compliant, and private. In November 2022, we launched Webex Go in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 and have already received tremendous feedback.
Cloud calling integrations: Many Cisco UCM customers use Jabber alongside other productivity tools from Google and Microsoft. These customers need an enterprise grade calling experience, but not a separate productivity interface. Webex Calling leverages the agility of our cloud to deliver calling through any productivity environment.
Our Microsoft Teams integration with Webex Calling delivers a comprehensive calling experience directly within the Teams interface and eliminates the need to switch back and forth between Webex and Microsoft applications. We continue to add new features to this integration, and will soon release a new landing page that will make it even easier to use Webex Calling from within Teams. To enhance your Microsoft Teams experience, we’ve also released two new Microsoft certified headsets, Headset 320 Series and 720 Series.
A growing number of businesses use Google Workspace tools for productivity. Webex Calling for Chrome delivers a powerful Webex Calling experience through a Chrome extension. Webex Calling for Chrome looks and feels just like a desktop application and is available on Windows, Mac, and ChromeOS platforms. You can try it out today by downloading our extension from the Chrome Web Store or learn more in the Webex App Hub.
Audio Intelligence is a portfolio of artificial intelligence technologies that make it easier for Webex users to communicate clearly, anywhere, on any device. Our award-winning noise removal technology ensures that Calling users can communicate clearly wherever they are. Our industry-first noise removal for external callers feature takes this one step further by removing noise from the other end of the call – even if that caller is not a Webex user.
Contact us to get a demo of our latest Webex Calling innovations.
I’m excited to share with you all that the Webex Calling team has accomplished since we last met. Join us for live demos of Webex Calling in the Work from Office space in Cisco Showcase.
You can also learn more about Webex Calling at the following sessions:
- Supercharge your business growth with Webex Calling – PSOCOL-1314 – Wednesday, Feb 8 and 11:00am CET
- Planning and Designing Successful Cloud Calling Deployments with Webex Calling: BRKCOL-2787 – Tuesday, Feb 7 at 5:00pm CET
The Webex Calling team looks forward to meeting you, and we hope you have a great Cisco Live Europe 2023!
About The Author
