With all of the buzz around Apple’s announcement of the iPhone 5S, 5C and the launch date of iOS 7 — we’ve decided to check-in with our Brett Belding, IT Senior Manager, IT Mobility Services, and the IT Mobility Services team. Brett and the rest of the IT Mobility Services team have interactive discussions on industry trends, BYOD, and even University of Georgia Bulldogs Football. Last week, I asked the team:
@murppaul @Olly1977 @bbelding What is @CiscoIT doing to prepare for iOS 7 and the new iPhones? — Aaron Chiles (@AaronChiles) September 11, 2013
Brett and the IT Mobility Services team responded:
@CiscoIT We focus on three big things: app compatibility and usability, network connectivity and security, and employee communications
— Brett Belding (@bbelding) September 12, 2013
@AaronChiles @murppaul @bbelding @CiscoIT and we’ve been part of the betas since they first existed pre iOS2!
— Oliver Parvin (@Olly1977) September 12, 2013
Cisco IT even received some unsolicated feedback on Twitter from Mike Wilusz, a Systems Engineer at Cisco.
Love seeing @CiscoIT post iOS7 and new iPhone discussions on it’s portal before it’s even out. Now that’s how you do IT! #itsabouttheusers
— Mike Wilusz (@miwilusz) September 10, 2013
In preparation for the flood of new and upgraded iOS devices, Cisco IT has been testing since the initial Apple iOS 7 Developer Beta to make sure employees have a seamless experience when connecting their devices by ensuring app compatibility, network connectivity, and security.
The preparation does not go unnoticed. Even other Cisco IT employees, like Paul Murphy in the UK, notice the hard work by IT Mobility Servicess team:
@AaronChiles I sit near them so see first hand the lengths they go through to make the experience great. @bbelding runs it well.
— Paul Murphy (@murppaul) September 11, 2013
These proactive measures are not new for the launch of iOS 7. Cisco IT has also decreased support costs by creating content for employee self-service and communication.
For more information on Cisco IT’s mobility strategy, methods, and deployment visit Cisco on Cisco – Borderless Networks.
Great summary, Aaron! I love the use of social media as a feedback mechanism (Yay Collaboration!) 🙂
The best parts of the Cisco IT BYOD Program are the communications and the content the team has developed to make the user experience simplified. Brett and the IT Mobility Services Team have put together an excellent best practice for change management in this program, making it seamless and a simple user interface.
This article is ironic given that Cisco does not support the iphone 5S with Anyconnect. Cisco said that they were caught off guard with iphone being 64 vs 32 bit. With 9 million new iphones sold, none of those users can access their corporate data if they use AnyConnect. How does Cisco respond to this?
Cisco was not provided with any early knowledge of the 5S, nor early access to devices, so we have only been able to work on this problem since it was publicly announced and more usefully since availability of HW one business day ago (9/20). Providing support for the 5S is our top priority, but it will not be done at the expense of destabilizing our release. While we aim to provide day 0 support, we cannot do so in these circumstances given what I noted above. We do not have an availability date to share yet.
Best Regards,
Pete Davis
Product Owner, Cisco AnyConnect
ac-mobile-feedback@cisco.com
Any update on a ball park date for iPhone5s support? This is a real business issue. An approximate timeframe would be helpful for planning new device purchases.
Hi Paul,
Unfortunately we don’t have a specific date to provide yet. We will provide an update via Social Media (Twitter @AnyConnect) and Facebook http://www.facebook.com/anyconnect once we have a candidate which has passed our quality process, at which point it will be primarily backend approval delays for Apple which will be out of our direct control. This support has the highest level of urgency for our team.
Best Regards,
Pete Davis
Product Owner, Cisco AnyConnect
ac-mobile-feedback@cisco.com
Great story on BYOD in Cisco, but more importantly how proactive IT is in not only staying on top of trends, but ahead! Mike summed it up best in his tweet “thats how you do IT!”