Cisco is doing its part to pull together enterprise trends toward both rich media and wireless with products and programs it says will boost collaboration capabilities for mobile workers.
The company plans to announce Tuesday a series of developments that, per its usual style, it has bundled under a grandiose umbrella name: Collaboration in Motion. The announcements aim to merge user experiences across corporate wired LANs, Wi-Fi networks and mobile WANs.
They include a change to the long-standing Cisco Certified Extensions (CCX) program to let more device types into the CCX interoperability club. The company has modularized the CCX program into four services it has labeled foundation (mostly security), management, collaboration and context-aware (location). CCX is a specification that wireless LAN chipmakers use in their reference designs to ensure client interoperability and compliance with proprietary Cisco Aironet RF features and protocols.The new CCX Services program extends certification to wireless players who may not need to be certified for the whole CCX suite of enhancements. For example, the maker of a wireless camera might only need to comply with the foundation module, says Paul DeBeasi, senior analyst at Burton Group. So the change to the program is likely to bring more vendors and device types into the Cisco CCX footprint, he notes.
The company also plans to announce a much bigger controller — the Wireless LAN Controller 5500 Series, with an 8Gbps backplane — to better accommodate the simultaneous, multimegabit requirements of mobile users using rich media applications on Wi-Fi networks. The $93,995 device can scale up to 250 access points, says Chris Kozup, senior mobility manager at Cisco, and will replace the company’s 4400 Series controllers going forward.
Note that the company’s Wireless Integrated Services Module, WiSM, which runs in a Catalyst 6500 switch chassis, supports 300 access points. It can be a cost-effective alternative to multiple lower-end stand-alone controllers if you already have a Catalyst switch in place.
Cisco also noted that it recently made its WebEx conferencing application a free download for the iPhone at the Apple Apps store. In addition, it introduced an OfficeExtend solution that pushes centralized LAN services to wireless users in branch offices when used with Cisco 800 Series Integrated Services Routers. It also officially rolled out it 3310 Mobility Services Engine (MSE), a development platform for wireless services with open APIs, for $6,995.
