Acano Joins Cisco: It’s Official

I’ve been eagerly awaiting the day when I could write that headline and post this news: We have completed the acquisition of Acano. Today, two winning teams with a common vision for the future of work become one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSCiK8OwMzc

Here are the top three things we’ll be delivering together:

#1 Users Will Get More Choice
The iPhone wouldn’t be very popular if it couldn’t call a Samsung Galaxy or a Motorola Moto G, would it? People just wouldn’t buy a phone that couldn’t connect to any other phone. And yet, in the office, we’ve had to tolerate such inoperability. That’s about to change.

Separately, Cisco and Acano have been laser-focused on bringing interoperability to the enterprise. Together, we’ll solve some of the tough problems that have made collaborating at work too hard for too long. This is absolutely critical to the future of collaboration at work, and no one is tackling it better than this new team.

#2 Collaborating at Work Will Get Even Easier
When you get in an elevator, you know exactly how to make the machine take you where you want to go. The same should be true for the tools you use to collaborate at work—you shouldn’t need manuals or someone from IT to intervene. Connecting should be simple, magical even. The technology should fade into the background so you can focus on getting great work done. Cisco and Acano have both been working to fine-tune the user experience across our entire portfolio, and we have great things in store.

#3 More People Will Be Able to Join the Discussion
Once upon a time, video was something used by fairly small teams of mostly executives. Back then, it was considered a huge feat to have a hundred people on a video call. Those days are long gone. Today, we need to be able to have thousands—even tens of thousands—of people on the same call. They all want to see and be seen and share content and audio. Make no mistake: This is not easy and the Acano team has solved several key challenges in delivering collaboration at hyperscale.

The bottom line: Cisco and Acano were doing great things separately. Together, the sky is the limit.

Acano Team: Welcome to Cisco.

Customers: Fasten your seatbelts. We’re just getting started and couldn’t be more excited about where this ride is headed. Stay tuned!