Steve Burnley
Collaboration Technical Lead
What's new in Webex?
Webex from Cisco is a great tool to facilitate conference calls. Whether you use it to host a call, or simply join one, it’s an easy and efficient way to meet. However we think that there’s definitely some room for improvement. With no real changes to the feature set and a dated user interface, it’s been feeling a little stagnant. Fortunately Cisco recognised this and have been taking some major steps to provide new features and a better user experience. But to take advantage of these improvements, you’ll need to take some proactive action.
What are these changes?
Cisco have introduced some excellent features that should make a real difference to your Webex experience:
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Video Room integration | The ability for standards-based video systems to connect to meetings |
| Skype for Business integration | The ability for Skype for Business users to directly connect to Webex meetings |
| Inclusive Toll dial-in audio | Including dial in audio for 45 countries |
| A simplified user interface | For a new, simplified user experience |
| Webex Teams | A hosted, secure collaboration platform for working with colleagues, partners and customers |
| A lower annual cost | For most customers |
These new features are available for all new subscriptions, so if you’ve had your Webex subscription for a year or two, you’re probably on the old platform and not taking advantage of these benefits. Cisco have set a target date of June 29th 2019 for every customer to migrate to a new subscription, but here at Softcat, we’ve found that a lot of organisations don’t realise they need to be proactive in migrating. If that sounds familiar, we can help. Even if you’re mid-subscription, we should be able to manage a migration now, enabling you to benefit from lower costs and this enhanced functionality. Get in touch with your account manager to get the ball rolling.
Anything else?
There’s a lot more still to come from Webex, with a host of new features and functionality soon to be announced. We’ve heard a few exciting details about Cognitive Collaboration – Cisco’s move to bring AI into meetings and communications user experience – which, once launched, will be included in your existing Webex subscription, as long as you’re on the new platform. Additionally, we’re expecting Webex Call, Cisco’s fully integrated hosted telephony platform, to be launched shortly in the UK and Europe. As soon as we have more details, we’ll give a further update.
If you’re interested in hearing more about the latest features of Cisco Webex, and collaboration in general, Amy Chang (SVP Collaboration at Cisco) will be presenting a keynote at Enterprise Connect, which will be broadcast live on the web.
Get in Touch
If you want to discuss how to take advantage of any of this please reach out to your Softcat Account Manager or Collaboration Specialist, or hit the button below.