59 VIEWPOINT Building collaboration for how people work Modern work spans offices, homes and other environments, driving demand for intelligent tools that adapt seamlessly Much of my time is spent talking with customers, partners and teams across Cisco, and one theme continues to surface: work has changed faster than the tools designed to support it. Today’s professionals move between offices, homes, factory floors, hospitals and airports – often within the same week. They expect collaboration to move with them, adapting seamlessly to their environment and remaining unobtrusive when it is time to focus. That expectation is shaping how we think about the future of collaboration, and it is also shaping our partnership with Microsoft. From my perspective, the future is less about adding features and more about building systems that work intelligently together. Devices play an important role, but only when they form part of a broader collaboration experience that connects meetings, calling, messaging, customer engagement and management into a coherent whole. This is where Cisco and Microsoft work particularly well together. Devices are where collaboration comes to life. The effectiveness of a meeting depends on what people can see, hear and do – whether in a conference room or at a desk. In recent years, we have embedded intelligence directly into our devices, using on-device AI to understand people, spaces and context in real time. Cameras frame participants naturally, audio focuses on voices and reduces distractions, and devices automatically power on, join meetings and adapt without requiring users to adjust settings or modes. When these devices run Microsoft Teams Rooms, customers benefit from the Teams experience they already rely on, combined with Cisco’s expertise in video, audio and device intelligence. The Microsoft Device Ecosystem Platform adds another layer, integrating Microsoft security innovations and lifecycle management directly into the device. For customers, this reduces compromise. They can standardise on Teams while benefiting from Cisco hardware designed for environments ranging from a single desk to the most complex boardroom. Collaboration will continue to move closer to people and the spaces in which they work. Intelligence will increasingly live at the edge – in the room and on the desk – while remaining connected to cloud services that provide memory, context and automation. Partnerships such as the one between Cisco and Microsoft make this possible at scale, combining deep expertise across devices, software, security and operations. Snorre Kjesbu is senior vice president and general manager of collaboration at Cisco SNORRE KJESBU: CISCO
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