Cisco and Microsoft are expanding their partnership and moving the unified communications and collaboration interoperability needle forward with new certifications for Cisco Webex devices to run Microsoft Teams Rooms natively, and an integration between Webex Contact Center and Teams.
According to the companies, the Cisco Board Pro is now certified to run Microsoft Teams Rooms natively on the device, giving customers more choices for flexible collaboration to enhance the hybrid working experience.
The 55-inch and 75-inch models of the Cisco Board Pro can be configured to set up and run Teams Rooms as the default experience, allowing customers to use Teams with Cisco’s purpose-build videoconferencing hardware. These are the first Cisco Rooms devices to be officially certified for Microsoft Teams.
Customers can leverage the AI capabilities built into Cisco’s hardware, including video quality, camera intelligence and noise removal technologies. In addition, Customers can easily switch between Teams and Webex meetings the same device from the Teams Rooms home screen with no reboot or reconfiguration required.
For IT administrators, the collaboration between the two companies allows them to manage Board Pro in the Microsoft Teams Admin Center and the new Teams Rooms Pro Management Portal. In addition, they can leverage other device management and analytics capabilities in Cisco Control Hub and Cisco Spaces.
In addition the Board Pro interoperability, the company are also announcing the new Webex Contact Center for Microsoft Teams, another integration designed to help simplify agent to subject matter expert collaboration and unlock knowledge across the organization to create a more seamless customer experience.
Agents can leverage the integration to connect and collaborate with knowledge workers through the Teams app and route customers to knowledge workers using Teams helping to lessen customer effort.
In addition, the integration provides calling interoperability, directory services, presence awareness, centralized management and administrative features.
More Cisco collaboration devices are expected to receive Teams certification throughout the year, including the Room Bar, Room Kit Pro, in mid-2023. The Room Kit EQ as a native Teams Room solution, the Cisco Desk Pro, running the native Teams Display or the Teams Rooms experience, and the Cisco Room Navigator, supporting the native Teams Panel room scheduling app, will follow in mid-2023.
Other Cisco devices such as the Cisco Desk Camera 4K USB webcam, Cisco Headset 720 Series Bluetooth wireless headsets and the Cisco Headset 320 Series wired headsets already have Teams certification.
Another version of this article originally appeared on our sister-site My TechDecisions on March 29, 2023. It has since been updated for Commercial Integrator’s audience.
