Aiming to bring enterprise class functionality to the midmarket, Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) has updated its unified communications products to target customers still using legacy phone systems and open new revenue streams for partners.
“We want to turn our attention strongly onto the midsize market,” said Roberto De La Mora, senior director of worldwide IP communication solutions marketing at Cisco. Midmarket customers want to appear as large companies in front of their customers, but often don’t have the budget to implement the necessary changes to stay competitive, he said.
The company has updated its Cisco Unified Communications Manager Business Edition 3000 and 6000 systems, now rebranded to the Cisco Business Edition 3000 and 6000, a move the vendor says is the first step to simplifying its midmarket offerings. Both systems will now include more collaboration features, traditionally reserved for large enterprise customers.
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Cisco has touted the price points for the system as the main opportunity driver for channel partners. The 3000 system’s pricing begins at about US$100 per user for a 100 user system and the 6000 at about US$160 for a 225 user system.
“There’s an opportunity for partners to be more relevant with their customer base with a solution that’s designed, packaged and priced more appropriately for them in the market,” said Marc Inderhees, senior sales business development manager at Cisco Worldwide Channels. He said he expects to see partners’ revenues grow, both by acquiring new customers and capitalizing on existing networking clients who may want to improve their communications systems.
The 3000 system, aimed at companies with 75 to 200 users, will now include integration with SIP trunking and Cisco’s WebEx conferencing solution. It will also now integrate with Cisco Jabber, an instant messaging and presence product delivered through the cloud, and will also now include Cisco’s 8941 and 8945 IP phones to access video calling in the same way as voice- by dialling one number. In addition, the system will have new country-specific dial plans.
The 3000 system will be compatible with Cisco TelePresence, but the system won’t support it directly, which was a deliberate move to keep the price point down, according to De La Mora. “We didn’t build it into that because we felt that most customers … are going to be using the hosted service that we announced with Callway,” he said, referring to the subscription-based SMB offering announced earlier this month.
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For its 6000 system, which does include TelePresence support and is geared toward customers with 150 to 750 users, Cisco has integrated Jabber and the WebEx meeting centre, as well as embedding virtualization software for virtualized voice messaging and call control applications.
The vendor has also lowered the user limit for the 6000 system to 50 users, as opposed to the previous 100, which De La Mora described as “overkill” for some customers. This will also allow partners who work with large enterprises to service those companies’ smaller subsidiaries or branch offices.
For Gabriel Kohut, vice-president of sales for TRC Networks Canada, the updates address a major gap in the market that Cisco has been working on filling. The Vaughan, Ont.-based Cisco partner will focus on selling the 3000 system for now.
“It delivers a lot of functionality moving forward, which is what they’re missing in that midmarket space,” he said. “This is a long time coming.”
“This is going to be a nice play for that customer with anything from 300 extensions and down,” Kohut said. “It’s extremely cost effective.” Kohut said he does expect to target a new customer base and increase margin with existing clients.
While video is increasingly becoming an attractive feature to midmarket customers, Kohut sees other benefits from this upgrade. “Really the big functionality that people are looking for is mobility,” he said and the integration of Cisco Jabber will be a stronger selling point for him. “Jabber’s really going to increase productivity for these users, which I think is great.”
The updated Business Edition 3000 and 6000 systems will be available to partners beginning this month.
