mercedes-benz-ag-partners-with-cisco-to-drive-hybrid-work-innovation-in-automotive

Mercedes-Benz AG Partners with Cisco to Drive Hybrid Work Innovation in Automotive

 

Today, at Mobile World Congress, Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) announced it is working with Mercedes-Benz to provide an optimal mobile office experience in its new Mercedes-Benz E Class vehicles. In today’s era of hybrid work, people expect an exceptional experience regardless of how and where they work – and the car is no exception. This partnership will help people get work done safely, securely, and comfortably in their vehicles, with the modern luxury and intuitive features that Mercedes-Benz and Webex customers are accustomed to.

Mercedes-Benz is committed to innovating its vehicles for the modern, digital era; and partnering with Cisco was a natural fit given the company’s leadership in secure, intuitive collaboration with Webex. The future of transportation is here now – and this partnership marks a momentous step forward with in-vehicle innovation and experiences.

Mercedes-Benz and Cisco are jointly addressing the needs of the ever-evolving hybrid workforce. The partnership makes it possible for an architect in the parking lot of a job site to collaborate with their team back at the firm, for example, or take a meeting between visiting a client and picking up the kids from after school care.

Together, the companies are transforming the car into a home office.

“Hybrid work is centered on the work you do, not where you do it – whether it’s in the office, home, car, or anywhere in between,” said Jeetu Patel, Executive Vice President & General Manager, Security & Collaboration, Cisco. “The mobile office cannot progress without the reliable and secure collaboration technology that only Cisco can provide. This partnership with Mercedes-Benz, a leader in automotive luxury, marks a big step forward in delivering the flexibility that the hybrid workforce demands.”

Enabling Frictionless Meetings and Calls
Drivers will be able to conduct frictionless meetings and calls with Meetings and enterprise grade calling with Webex. These features are all part of the Webex Suite, which provides the continuous, secure, and reliable connectivity that Cisco is known for. Webex’s proprietary audio intelligence technology offers best-in-class noise cancelation, enhancing the experience for the driver and any passengers working in the vehicle. Webex’s technology makes it easier to hear and be heard by singling out and boosting the clarity of an individual’s voice while eliminating distracting background noises, such as road noise and, at times, co-passengers talking, that come with the flexibility of conducting meetings and calls from the vehicle.

Safety-Centric Approach
Core to this announcement is safety: when the vehicle is moving, meetings and calls will use audio-only. When parked, users can harness Webex’s full immersive collaboration experience in their E Class, including video meetings, automatic AI-powered transcription, content sharing, and reactions (such as a thumbs up or celebration emoji).

Availability
The interior of the 2024 Mercedes-Benz E Class was previewed on February 22, 2023. The new vehicle will be equipped with Wi-Fi and cellular data connection, among many other things. Using either connection, drivers can download the Webex App from the Mercedes Benz Car App Store to appear directly on the touchscreen of the vehicle’s infotainment system, eliminating the dependency on phone. This offering will be available globally in the new Mercedes-Benz E Class vehicles, which are expected to arrive at dealerships this spring.

Cisco works with over 32,000 transportation organizations in 169 countries worldwide and has 25,000 patents in the transportation space. This partnership with Mercedes-Benz is part of Webex for Automobiles (blog here), including Webex Meetings for Apple CarPlay and its collaboration with Ford Motor Company.

mobily-wraps-up-leap-2023-with-new-partnership-announcements

Mobily Wraps up LEAP 2023 with New Partnership Announcements

 

As LEAP 2023 wraps up, Mobily unveils a new series of agreements and partnerships across a wide range of technology fields,  including cloud centers, digitalization, and cybersecurity as well as presenting their Digital Hub initiative.

Thousands of delegates, experts and industry leaders attended the last day of the Kingdom’s mega-event, which envisioned the future of technology and provided a platform for new products and solutions.

Highlights on day four for Mobily are announcements of new Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) with companies such as Tata Consulting Services, Cisco AWS and many more.

Digital Hub initiative

During the conference, Mobily presented its Digital Hub initiative, which enhances the Kingdom’s position as the first regional hub. The center also includes an integrated system of submarine cables that connect the world from east to west, in addition to Terrestrial networks, data centers, landing stations, and the JED1 IX International Neutral Internet Exchange in partnership with Equinix.

M. Thamer Al-Fadda, Senior Vice President, Wholesale and Carrier Services, said: “During the past few days in LEAP, we have signed a number of agreements with our partners, through which we look forward to achieving our goal of enhancing digital infrastructure and improving customer experience. In carriers and operators’ sector, we have invested to provide a diversified portfolio of services and solutions for expanding the local and international infrastructure. In addition to building new partnerships to achieve sustainable growth in the communications and information technology sector.”

Cisco

Mobily inked a new 3 year-long collaboration with Cisco Systems Company to leverage the latter’s managed Security Services to cement the company’s infrastructure and offering. The agreement aims to maximize Mobily’s cybersecurity capabilities through enhanced monitoring and incident response, in addition to deploying cybersecurity content and platform management and threat Hunting solutions as well as identity and access management and Cybersecurity Infrastructure Management, which will all further accelerate the company’s operation excellence.

Commenting on the agreement, Bader Alasoos, SVP, Mobily Cybersecurity department, said: “Mobily Cybersecurity department with Cisco Systems team have jointly worked on developing state of the art SOC services model, leveraging latest in technology and internally developed security content and best practices. The Security Operations delivery model caters for Mobily infrastructure growth and address challenges of Cybersecurity in our strategic IT, cloud and Telecom ventures aligned with Kingdoms 2030 vision.”

Mohammed Tantawi, General Manager of Cisco Systems, said: “The next 3 years of Mobily and Cisco partnership are filled with exciting new initiatives that will transform Mobily’s Security and detection systems, developing new capabilities that will help early detection and comprehensive response to security incidents, enhance user experience for corporate and Mobily customers when interacting with digital platforms.”

TCS

Tata Consulting Services (TCS) and Mobily signed an agreement, which will see both TCS and Mobily work hand-in-hand to develop a remote center in Jizan. The development of the center will also open up new job opportunities for local Saudi talent and benefit from low attrition, low running costs and a long running relationship with the region.

The development of the center will see Mobily becoming an anchor customer with TCS for a fixed committed business. The investment will deploy a Six Sigma process consultant that will further optimize and automate the business process.

Amazon Web Services

Mobily has signed an agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to become an Advanced Partner in Saudi Arabia. As part of the agreement, Mobily will establish an AWS Cloud Center of Excellence staffed with AWS-trained and certified Mobily personnel. The collaboration is in line with Mobily’s aim to accelerate the digitization of the Saudi enterprise market. It includes launching a portfolio of cloud services, such as Edge Cloud solutions, Private 5G, and industry 4.0 solutions, as well as the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning (ML) services.

Omar Al-Rasheed, Chief Strategy and Digitalization Office of Mobily, Said: “Mobily’s partnerships with hyperscalers are essential to move up the ICT value chain and accelerate the journey of enterprise digital transformation. We are excited to collaborate with AWS, which has a wide range of edge services for enterprises, the largest developer community, and the biggest market share in IaaS. Building on both parties’ joint capabilities would indeed unlock new opportunities and possibilities.”

Redhat

Mobily and Redhat have signed an agreement to build a strategic partnership to enhance digital transformation. Through the deal, Mobily will build a horizontal native cloud with a simple architecture that will support 5G functions. This includes 5G SA, vRAN, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. The cloud system will further accelerate Mobily’s innovations and form the basis for digital transformation with the help of automation, security and freedom, while also providing flexibility to choose the right technology as required.

new-partnership-brings-microsoft-teams-to-cisco-meeting-room-devices

New partnership brings Microsoft Teams to Cisco meeting room devices

 

Cisco and Microsoft Corp. Wednesday announced at Microsoft’s annual Ignite conference a new partnership that will provide customers with more choice. In the first half of 2023, Cisco and Microsoft will soon offer the ability to run Microsoft Teams natively on Cisco Room and Desk devices Certified for Microsoft Teams, with the option of Teams as the default experience. Cisco will become a partner in the Certified for Microsoft Teams program for the first time.

“Interoperability has always been at the forefront of our hybrid work strategy, understanding that customers want collaboration to happen on their terms — regardless of device or meeting platform,” said Jeetu Patel, EVP and GM, Security & Collaboration, Cisco. “Our partnership with Microsoft brings together two collaboration leaders to completely reimagine the hybrid work experience.”

“Our vision to make Teams the best collaboration experience for physical spaces is brought to life by our incredible ecosystem of hardware partners,” said Jeff Teper, president, collaborative apps and platforms at Microsoft. “By welcoming Cisco as our newest partner building devices Certified for Microsoft Teams, we are excited to bring leading collaboration hardware and software to market together for our joint customers.”

Initially, six of Cisco’s most popular meeting devices and three peripherals will be certified for Teams, with more to come. The first wave of devices, expected to be certified by early 2023, will include the Cisco Room Bar, the Cisco Board Pro 55-inch and 75-inch, and the Cisco Room Kit Pro for small, medium and large meeting room spaces, respectively. The Cisco Desk Pro and Cisco Room Navigator will follow. Customers will have the option to make Microsoft Teams Rooms the default experiences, and the devices will continue to support joining Webex meetings with all the features and functionality customers enjoy today. The first peripheral — the Cisco Desk Camera 4K — is an intelligent USB webcam and will be available by the end of October 2022, followed by two headphones with a Teams button by early 2023.

Microsoft Teams customers will enjoy the digital workplace where they connect and collaborate with teammates, partners and customers, combined with Cisco’s high-quality, reliable video technology with powerful camera intelligence and noise removal technologies that enable inclusive and collaborative meeting experiences. All certified devices will be manageable in the Teams Admin Center and the new Teams Rooms Pro Management Portal, as well as through the Cisco Control Hub device management.

powering-an-inclusive-future-of-work:-cisco-unveils-webex-innovations-that-enable-hybrid-work-and-events,-ensuring-equal-opportunity-and-voice

Powering an Inclusive Future of Work: Cisco Unveils Webex Innovations that Enable Hybrid Work and Events, Ensuring Equal Opportunity and Voice

 

  • Webex velocity of innovation continues, introducing more than 800 new features and devices since September.
  • All-new Webex Suite, including a new look and feel, supports hybrid work collaboration at 40 percent lower cost than a-la-carte.
  • The integration of Slido’s audience engagement capabilities and soon Socio’s hybrid event management tools provide the most comprehensive events platform for any physical, virtual or hybrid event.

As the world transitions to hybrid, organizations require solutions that are flexible, supportive and inclusive. Today, Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) unveiled an all-new Webex Suite with innovations to serve as the foundation for inclusive hybrid work and events, delivering unmatched levels of flexibility and personalization for everyone.

With 98 percent of future meetings expected to include at least one remote participant, this mixed mode of working (blending remote and in-person interactions) is fueling long-lasting implications on work culture, event engagement and technology. This requires investing more broadly – beyond the traditional conference room – to fundamentally reimagine the new requirements of hybrid events and a hybrid workforce. The way organizations worked pre-pandemic and during the pandemic will be starkly different in this next wave of work – where good enough is simply not enough.

“Cisco’s collaboration business is incredibly essential to our customers,” said Chuck Robbins, CEO, Cisco. “With all the integrations the team has added – 800 new features and devices since September – we truly have the most comprehensive meetings, calling, messaging, and event management solution on the market powering the future of hybrid work.”

“To be successful in the era of hybrid work, organizations need to make sure their solutions are flexible, inclusive, supportive, secure, and easily managed on the backend by IT,” said Jeetu Patel, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco Security and Collaboration. “The all-new Webex Suite ensures everyone in a hybrid workforce has equal opportunity and voice.”

New Webex advancements include:

  • Increased Value: The all-new Webex Suite is the industry’s first suite for hybrid work to combine meetings, calling, messaging, polling and events in one offering for up to 40 percent less than a-la-carte. The new Webex identity and logo unveiled today were reinvented to reflect the powerful purpose and value Webex brings to the market, its customers and people’s lives.
  • End-to-End Events: A complete events execution and management platform necessary in the next era of hybrid events. Full capabilities of the industry’s first end-to-end event experience at scale will become available upon completion of Cisco’s Socio acquisition. 
  • Audience Interaction Tools: Polling, quizzes, Q&A and more powered by Slido, is the industry’s first audience engagement solution to be integrated across all collaboration experiences. Polling is available now in Meetings and will be coming soon to Events.
  • Audio Intelligence: Building upon Webex’s market-leading noise removal and speech enhancement capabilities, users will have the new ability of speech optimization for remote and shared workspaces through My Voice Only to eliminate background noise, including speech from people in the background, and solely focus on the main speaker’s speech. My Voice Only will be available worldwide in August 2021.
  • Camera Intelligence: People Focus, announced earlier this year, is coming to Webex in 2021. People Focus uses machine learning and AI technology to individually re-frame meeting participants who are spread across a meeting room allowing remote participants to feel more connected and everyone in the meeting to benefit from seeing body language, facial expressions and more.
  • Next-level Devices: The Webex Desk provides a powerful all-in-one collaboration device designed for the desk at work or home. Immersive collaboration experiences will also be available with modern touch interactions via RoomOS that connects workflows with less context switching, as well as Webex Assistant Skills platform that opens up a universe of voice-powered extensions to seamlessly and easily integrate more controls, content and applications for Webex Devices.
  • Secure Experiences: Real-time data loss prevention for Webex, which automatically blocks and removes confidential information, will be available in Messaging. With this real-time data loss prevention, users are prohibited from posting classified content rather than redacting or deleting content after it is posted. Additionally, European Webex customers will be able to host and process their content within the EU. Webex users will also benefit from our strengthened end-to-end encryption options, including augmenting our end-to-end encryption with end-to-end verified identity. In other words, customers will not have to choose between usability and security, they get both.

Additional Resources

Pricing and Availability

  • Webex Suite is available today and will be priced at 40 percent lower than a-la-carte.
  • Webex Desk will be available to order later this month at the Cisco suggested resale price of $1249 for customers and a standard price of $2495.