Apple playing nicely with enterprise companies is a sight for sore eyes. The edict that Microsoft has enterprise on lockdown is dissipating.
Huge enterprise player Cisco and Apple announced a “Fast Lane” for iOS enterprise users, which promises a more streamlined and optimized experience for those enterprise customers using Cisco networks and products. There aren’t a lot of details right now, as the release merely states that the companies are dedicated to “providing unique collaboration on iPhone and iPad.”
A few tweaks will also be put in place to make the hop between a Cisco desk phone and iPhone more seamless than it is today.
Tim Cook had this to say about the tieup:
There’s a lot of words here and not a lot of meat, but what it seems like Apple and Cisco are working on is an environment to enable easier onboarding for enterprise users. There’s no reason for a corporate customer to use phones that aren’t good for their employees simply because it’s easy to get your software onto it.
Cisco’s Executive Chairman John Chambers calls it an “engineering and go-to-market partnership” which again doesn’t say much other than the two companies probably have a few projects going on and are spending quite a bit of time together.
The areas that should see streamlining are Cisco’s mobile, cloud, and premises-based collaboration tools like Webex. Which we all love. Well not really. Someone fix that thing, please.
