Cisco Unified Communications to Support iPhone

As popular as the Apple iPhone is, it has had a bumpy road into the enterprise. That’s beginning to change as more enterprise vendors make an attempt to meet Apple partway by developing products to support the iPhone, just like they build Blackberry support now. Among the first vendors to build a connection to the iPhone is Cisco. EnterpriseMobileToday has the story.

SAN FRANCISCO — Cisco today previewed new features coming to its Mobile Voice application for the iPhone during a media briefing here at its offices, outlining plans to advance the company’s unified communications strategy.

“We believe the iPhone is a very important market for us,” said Laurent Philonenko, vice president and general manager of Cisco’s (NASDAQ: CSCO) Unified Communications Business Unit. “The iPhone came from nowhere in the enterprise to CDW and other companies deploying iPhones in the hundreds and thousands of units.” (IT distributor CDW, both a Cisco customer and partner, was in attendance.)

While Cisco is careful not to call it multitasking, a feature sorely lacking on the iPhone, the company is adding a “call preservation” feature to its iPhone app. The update is due out either late next month or by April. Cisco said the call preservation feature keeps a call connected even if you switch to another iPhone application.

Also coming in the update is a “shake-to-lock” feature that locks the iPhone when you need to stop what you’re doing but want to stay in an application. Cisco said that having the iPhone locked protects the user from accidentally adding text or exiting the application or having to reenter a password. A simple slider on the bottom lets users unlock it with a finger swipe.

Read the full story at EnterpriseMobileToday:


Cisco Plans iPhone Update as Part of UC Push