October 16, 2013 Leave a Comment
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Inside Cisco IT

Making Video Calls Easy for Users

It’s likely that your users are already stating a clear preference for video calls, but you may not know it. Why? Because with video calling apps like Skype and Facetime, employees may be using their smartphones to place video calls over the cellular network, even when they’re in the office.

For Gen Y employees in particular, video calls are a normal and expected way to communicate. But now, employees of all ages are asking why their workplace doesn’t offer the tools and support for video calling.

Video endpoints have long been viewed as a luxury, reserved only for executives and sales teams. Now, endpoints that have the familiarity of desktop phones, such as the Cisco DX650, and new technologies such as TelePresence and WebEx Working Together bring cost-effective, easy-to-use video calling to everyone.

By offering video calling as an IT service, you can meet today’s user expectations in a way that maintains enterprise security and control. Otherwise, some users will likely go around you and use external apps on the cellular network or public Wi-Fi, with their associated security risks.

The Cisco DX650 delivers voice and video calls, conferencing with Cisco WebEx applications, presence and instant messaging with the Cisco Jabber platform, and on-demand access to cloud services. I use this video endpoint like a desktop phone; I just plug it into a network port when I’m working at a Cisco office or connect via the VCS Expressway when teleworking from home. The DX650 is a step closer to changing phones to be flexible and operate more like ‘tablets’ and apps – in other words, it is like an android tablet!

Cisco TelePresence and WebEx Working Together combines the cloud-based Cisco WebEx conferencing service, Cisco TelePresence video endpoints, and the Cisco Jabber client into one-click conferences where the video can be seen by all participants.

In our ACE Service Introduction Network, we’ve found that an important success factor is enabling video calling for entire work teams, instead of just provisioning it upon request from individual employees. When users know that all employees on the team have a video endpoint, they are more likely to initiate video calls because they know everyone can fully participate.

Overall, we’ve found that video leads to more calls because users understand the effectiveness of visual communication for getting decisions made and work done. Cisco reaps the benefits of more employee collaboration and Cisco IT achieves economies of scale for our video infrastructure.

This post is part of a series about mobility, video, and cloud-based collaboration on the Cisco IT ACE Service Introduction Network. You’ll find more information in these related posts: