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Cisco IP Telephony
Cisco has finally realized they just can’t make IP phones, boxes and routers anymore. As Cisco vice-president of IP Communications tells my colleague Marguerite Reardon today, "IP telephony isn’t just about toll bypass anymore. "It’s about improving productivity and allowing people to do their jobs more effectively. And people need to be able to communicate and collaborate through the means that suits them best."
Already, we are starting to see announcements from Cisco vendor partners. Microsoft says it will work with Cisco to integrate the SIP-based Microsoft Live Communications Server with the now SIP-enabled Cisco Unified Communications System of which Call Manager is a key component.
"What’s ironic is their subsidiary, Linksys, was SIP compliant from the time they bought SIPURA, and got a bottom up strategy going, rather than a top down," Andy writes. "The Linksys IP PBX called the 9000 provides a lot of really cool CallManager like features for fractions of the price of what a Call Manager can deliver."
As the last major IP systems and equipment vendor to accept SIP, it does kind of seem that Cisco was dragged kicking and screaming into the SIP camp. Well, maybe not "dragged kicking and screaming," but more like biding their time before they could not do so anymore because of SIP’s potential and customer demand.
Cisco IP Telephony
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