Cisco and Nokia Gain Momentum in Mobile Unified Communications

(Business News & Technology News, 2 May 2008)

Cisco and Nokia have announced growing customer and partner acceptance of their combined mobile unified communications solution—the Mobile Business Solution—which extends the rich Cisco Unified Internet Protocol (IP) Phone capabilities to Nokia Eseries smartphones over Cisco Unified Wireless Networks to offer users a seamless mobile experience in the enterprise environment and public cellular networks.

The two companies are also beginning to deploy each other's mobile solutions. Cisco is beginning to deploy Nokia Eseries smartphones for its sales organization in the United States, Europe and Asia Pacific theaters, while Nokia will begin with Cisco Unified Wireless Network in its offices, labs, and manufacturing sites.

"We are a leading public research university producing more than $530 million in annual research, and we are a diverse community of people who thrive on innovation and collaboration," says Tom Magrini, Assistant Director of Network Services, University Information Technology Services (UITS), University of Arizona (UA), which will offer Nokia Eseries smartphones as a standard voice offering. "The solution from Cisco and Nokia allows the UA to take advantage of our campus-wide Cisco Unified Wireless Network to provide single-number reach while saving on cellular costs by routing calls through our Cisco Unified Communications Manager. With over 186 buildings across a 378-acre campus, a dual-mode cellular and WiFi solution allows UITS to deliver voice services to areas where cellular coverage is problematic. The solution from Cisco and Nokia is a major component of UA's future unified communications strategy and we view Nokia Eseries smartphones as a potential desktop phone replacement to enhance both mobility and productivity."

The Mobile Business Solution from Cisco and Nokia is currently being commercially deployed with more than 100 customers, including the city of Biel, Switzerland; the city of Maastrich, The Netherlands; Millipore, United States; Omicron, Austria; SESCAM, Spain; Tifco Hotels, Ireland; and University of Arizona, United States. Additionally the combined solution is in trials with more than 600 enterprise and small and medium-sized business customers.

The Mobile Business Solution from Cisco and Nokia is an IP-based Cisco Unified Communications solution, featuring Nokia's latest dual-mode business-optimized Eseries smartphones and Cisco Unified Wireless Network family of wireless LAN controllers and access points. The Cisco and Nokia combined mobile unified communication solution helps businesses improve productivity and efficiency across their enterprise and mobile workspaces by extending the rich set of communications features from the Cisco Unified Communications family of products to Nokia Eseries smartphones.

"Voice and data connectivity with best-in-class devices—that's what organizations want for their increasingly mobile employees and operations," said Tom Furlong, Senior Vice President, Services & Software, Nokia. "The combined number of large enterprises and small-medium businesses who have either deployed this solution or are trialing it—coupled with the distribution footprint that we have to bring this solution to the market—is testimony to its success and acceptance by our customers."

To meet the market demands for seamless mobile convergence solutions, more than 95 reseller partners have received dual certification from Cisco and Nokia on the combined mobile unified communication solution. Certified channel partners include Telindus, Computacenter, Dimension Data, E2E, Lutech NextiraOne Italia, Touchbase, and T-systems.

"By joining forces with Nokia and Cisco, Telindus now has the opportunity to extend desktop applications and security out to the mobile device, responding to customer demand," comments Mark Hutchinson, UK Managing Director at Telindus. "With unified communications, employees have the ability to be more efficient and increase their productivity whilst 'dead time' and costs are reduced."

To deliver a rich on-campus voice and data mobility experience, Cisco is currently in pilot with the Mobile Business Solution from Cisco and Nokia with 3,500 sales employees across the globe. Nokia has deployed the Cisco Unified Communication solution based on Cisco Unified Communications, Cisco Unified IP Phones and Cisco Unified Wireless Networks in several flagship stores around the world.

"Cisco and Nokia are committed to helping enhance the mobile workspace to give organizations more control, security and increased flexibility for mobile workspaces—at home, at work and on the move," says Rick McConnell, Vice President and General Manager of the Unified Communications business unit for Cisco. "Customers have the benefit of using the device of their choice to best suit their user experience needs—whether that's a wideband audio IP phone with rich color and XML services, or a business-optimized mobile device, or both—all on a robust network built for real-time communications."

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