Cisco and Microsoft Have Come Together to Deliver a Better User Experience

Industry Giants Join Together to Drive Open and Seamless Collaboration

Collaboration: The act of working with someone to produce or create something.

It’s a word we use all the time. But, have you thought about what it really means? “The act of working with someone to produce or create something.” That statement carries a lot of weight.

Collaboration is the heart of how my team and I take bold steps every day to connect employees to each other, transforming workforces and the future of work itself. Delighting employees and customers is central to Cisco Webex, what we do and why we do it.

Shaping the Future with Employee Experience

Our digital workplaces are more innovative and agile than ever before. People are at the forefront of shaping the way work is performed and they need the right collaboration technologies to get work done even faster. These tools must work seamlessly together to really be impactful in enabling teamwork that leads to better results, higher productivity, and engaged employees.

Today Microsoft and Cisco are announcing a partnership that enables Cisco’s Webex video devices to connect to the Microsoft Teams meeting services in multiple ways. First, Cisco Webex will introduce an interop solution that will be certified as a Microsoft Cloud Video Interop (CVI) offering to allow Cisco Webex Room devices and SIP video conferencing devices to join Microsoft Teams meetings with a reliable interop experience.

Frictionless Collaboration in Multivendor Environments

Cisco and Microsoft are working together on a new approach that enables a direct guest join capability from one another’s video conferencing device to their respective meeting service web app (WebRTC based) – ability to join a Microsoft Teams meeting from a Webex Room Device and the ability to join a Cisco Webex Meeting from a Microsoft Teams Room. These capabilities will be supported on the latest generations of meeting room devices that can run via embedded web technologies. Cisco will support additional vendors in the future. With today’s announcements, we hope to simplify and accelerate interoperability options for our customers as they adopt Cisco Webex Teams and Webex Meetings solutions within their organizations.

Why are these integrations important? We both have a large base of customers who use Cisco and Microsoft products. Customers will benefit from a reliable interop solution using their existing Cisco video conferencing devices to seamlessly join a Microsoft Teams meeting or using Cisco Webex Meetings to join a Microsoft Teams Room. The solutions are expected to GA in early 2020.

Building the Bridge for Meaningful Experience-Centric Collaboration

We are listening and are working together to build these bridges to provide the best user experiences with the tools desired to get the job done. Today’s news further showcases Cisco’s and Microsoft’s joint commitment to openness by creating these enriched experiences for meeting participants in multivendor environments by providing frictionless collaboration without boundaries.

See how easy it is to join a Microsoft Teams meeting from a Webex Video Device:

Today Microsoft and Cisco are announcing a partnership that enables Cisco’s Webex video
devices to connect to the Microsoft Teams meeting services in multiple ways.