Page 6 - Cisco Tribune Q2 2017

6 2nd Quarter 2017 NEWS l PRODUCTS l PEOPLE l EVENTS Telecom Reseller: Cisco Tribune
A Cisco Finesse Power Pack from 2Ring added to Cisco SolutionsPlus Program
Cisco Announces Intent to Acquire MindMeld
Artificial Intelligence acquisition to power new conversational interfaces for Cisco’s collaboration suite
SAN JOSE, CA - Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) has announced its intent to acquire MindMeld Inc., a privately held artificial intelligence (AI) company based in San Francisco. MindMeld
has pioneered the development of
a unique AI platform that enables customers to build intelligent and human-like conversational interfaces
for any application or device. Through
its proprietary machine learning (ML) technology, MindMeld delivers incredible accuracy to help users interact with voice and chat assistants in a more natural way.
At Cisco, we believe that AI and machine learning will play an increasingly vital role across all parts
of our business. Given our industry leadership in networking, collaboration, data center, analytics, and unified communications, we are uniquely positioned to take advantage of AI and ML and embed it across the network and the cloud. Cisco is unlocking capabilities through AI that were unthinkable in the past — for example, empowering our customers to self-manage their network and data center, stay ahead of security attacks, embed intelligence at the
edge, deliver predictive analytics, and revolutionize the workplace. AI and ML technology is already represented across our portfolio, powering products like Stealthwatch, Cisco Spark Board, and Cisco Spark Room Kit and features like SpeakerTrack and VoiceTrack across our video portfolio.
As chat and voice quickly become
the interfaces of choice, MindMeld’s AI technology will enable Cisco to deliver unique experiences throughout its portfolio, starting with collaboration. This acquisition will power new conversational interfaces for Cisco’s collaboration products, revolutionizing how users will interact with our technology, increasing ease of use, and enabling new cognitive capabilities. For example, users will be able to interact with Cisco Spark via natural language commands, providing an experience
that is highly customized to the user
and their work. Together, Cisco and MindMeld can bring voice AI to meeting rooms throughout the world, where Cisco’s near-ubiquitous presence of
video and telephony hardware will help increase adoption of AI technology across the workplace.
“The workplace of the future is one powered by AI,” said Rowan Trollope, senior vice president, Cisco IoT and
Applications Group. “This is a significant step toward making that workplace a reality. Integrating MindMeld into the Cisco Spark platform will transform how users interact in Cisco Spark Spaces, Cisco Spark Meetings, and Cisco Spark Care.”
With ten patent assets* to its
name, MindMeld brings industry- coveted AI, software and engineering talent and expertise to further the evolution of Cisco’s collaboration suite. The MindMeld team will join the Cloud Collaboration group under the leadership of Jens Meggers, senior vice president and general manager, as the Cognitive Collaboration team.
Cisco will acquire MindMeld for $125 million in cash and assumed equity awards. The acquisition is expected to close in Cisco’s fourth quarter of fiscal year 2017, following customary closing conditions and regulatory review.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release may be deemed to contain forward-looking statements, which are subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995,
including statements regarding the acquisition powering new conversational interfaces for Cisco’s collaboration
suite of products, revolutionizing
how our users will interact with our technology, increasing ease of use, and enabling new cognitive capabilities,
the integration of MindMeld into the Cisco Spark platform transforming how users interact in Cisco Spark Spaces, Cisco Spark Meetings, and Cisco
Spark Care, the expected completion
of the acquisition and the time frame
in which this will occur, the expected benefits to Cisco and its customers
from completing the acquisition, and plans regarding MindMeld personnel. Readers are cautioned that these forward-looking statements are only predictions and may differ materially from actual future events or results
due a variety of factors, including, among other things, that conditions to the closing of the transaction may not
be satisfied, the potential impact on
the business of MindMeld due to the uncertainty about the acquisition, the retention of employees of MindMeld
and the ability of Cisco to successfully integrate MindMeld and to achieve expected benefits, business and economic conditions and growth trends in the networking industry, customer markets and various geographic regions, global economic conditions and uncertainties in the geopolitical environment and other risk factors set forth in Cisco’s most recent reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q. Any forward-looking statements
in this release are based on limited information currently available to Cisco, which is subject to change, and Cisco will not necessarily update the information.
* Includes patent assets both issued ●
SACRAMENTO, CA - 2Ring is proud to announce that it has become an official member of the Cisco SolutionsPlus Program. This means that all businesses that run customer service on one of the Cisco Contact Center platforms are able to approach Cisco or members of the Cisco global reseller network to purchase 2Ring Dashboards & Wallboards and 2Ring Gadgets for Cisco Finesse.
“We at 2Ring are truly excited about joining the Cisco SolutionsPlus program since we understand that any company that received the invitation [to join the program] had to go through a rigorous selection process,” said Michal Grebac, Strategic Sales & Marketing Director, 2Ring. “It must be said that this achievement also belongs to all of our existing resellers and customers who have shown trust in our company and in our solutions in the early stages. The existence of a large and global customer base that uses our solutions 24×7 in day-to- day operations as well as the never-ending support from our existing reseller partners definitely worked in our favor during the selection process.”
Both 2Ring solutions added to the Cisco price list complement Cisco Unified Contact Center products. 2Ring Dashboards & Wallboards is a solution providing easy access to views showing relevant real-time statistics. These views can be available on large screens in contact centers or even on the go – on the cell phones of supervisors and other managers. 2Ring Gadgets for Cisco Finesse, on the other hand, is a solution that focuses on enhancing the
user experience of agents and supervisors
within Cisco Finesse. Among many other improvements, the Premium Bundle also offers integrations of Cisco’s contact centers with CRM and Service Desk systems like MS Dynamics CRM, SAP CRM, Salesforce, or almost any SQL based CRM system. 2Ring customers can deploy all of the available connectors and have agents
work with data previews and benefit from automation with multiple CRM systems at once or have Cisco Finesse integrated with different system per each contact center team.
“2Ring, as a Preferred Solution Partner, has already enjoyed early access to information from Cisco product managers. Being part of the SolutionsPlus program means that we will officially get on par with other SolutionsPlus program members and enjoy the same benefits that in the end will transfer to the products we deliver to our existing and prospective customers,” said Miroslav Moravek, Chief Operation Officer at 2Ring.
About 2Ring
2Ring, a Cisco Preferred Solution Partner, has been active in the field of services for contact centers and IP telephony since 2001. For more information, please visit www.2Ring.com.
About Cisco SolutionsPlus
Cisco SolutionsPlus is a program that places a carefully selected set of Cisco- compatible products on the Cisco price list with the goal of Cisco customers being able to order these products directly from Cisco or via the existing reseller network. ●
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