Page 13 - CHCS - Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solutions

Supporting Student Notes:

• Existing hosted/cloud industry is fragmented and includes many niche players, and others who are
adding “cloud” to their marketing literature

• Competitive solutions are often made up of disjointed suites of applications from multiple vendors –
stitched together to resemble a “seamless” offering. Support and security implications

• Competitive solutions are generally multi-tenant architectures, limiting customization and flexibility
and introducing a different level of security concerns

• Lack of certifications for vendors offering hosted solutions, providing customers with little
understanding of a providers technical competence, no testing, no audits/site visits, no required
skills around providing managed services, SLAs, etc.

• Very little in the way of organized end-to-end or uniform solutions, making it difficult for customers to
compare offers and understand what is “behind the curtain”. This includes: applications, data
center and security architectures and infrastructure, WAN, end points, management suites for
service fulfillment and service assurance, etc.

• Felt customers would see tremendous value in a solution that was backed by the industry leader in
voice and collaboration, who is financially viable, and provides a globally supported, tested and pre-
integrated “whole offer” for their partners.