Claudio Castelli, Senior Analyst, Enterprise

The highlight of Cisco’s recent C-Scape conference in Melbourne was the news of its collaboration portfolio, which is gaining momentum. The company is engaging with an increasing number of service providers to position its Hosted Collaboration Solution (HCS).

HCS offers a clear path to help enterprises migrate their communications to the cloud, and positions uniquely in the market; its delivery model is expected to disrupt the current partner ecosystem. Traditional channel partners will need to rethink their role, while Cisco must evolve its partner program to support this transition.

A unique proposition for telcos

Cisco has a large market share in IP telephony, of which a significant portion is managed on-premise by a service provider. This gives service providers deploying HCS a large addressable market. Enterprises already using Cisco’s on-premise solution Communications Manager can now deploy the company’s collaboration technology with seamless …