Cisco's Q2'FY12 collaboration sales (which includes CUCM and Jabber sales), sequentially declined over the previous 2 quarters, Q1'FY12 and Q4'FY11. It appears Cisco is facing stiff competition from both the Microsoft Lync and Salesforce.com Chatter products.
Interestingly, according to the slide presentation below, Cisco is offering a services reimbursement of up to $20,000 for qualifying Jabber deployments:
Cisco's Jabber for everyone offer FAQ:
Q. What's in it for the partner?
A. Jabber for Everyone will motivate more active consideration, trial, and deployments of Cisco Jabber and Cisco Unified Presence at Cisco Unified Communications Manager customers. Getting Jabber deployed accelerates broader deployment of Unified Communication Managers call control, IP phones, TelePresence endpoints and infrastructure, and WebEx conferencing. It also leads to significant cross-sell and pull-through opportunities for additional bandwidth, wireless, security, and partner deployment services. Use this as a conversation starter to what Cisco is offering to the customer and the services you can provide to get this operational today.
For Cisco's Q4FY12, we will be offering a promotional services incentive to help you accelerate this offer. We will be providing a services rebate of up to $20,000 per qualifying customer in order to help you achieve that footprint now in any net new deals.
Q. What is the "Jabber for Everyone" Offer?
A. Cisco is making presence and instant messaging (IM) capabilities and Cisco Jabber clients available to all employees at our Cisco Unified Communications Manager customers. Jabber IM client applications and Cisco Unified Presence (on-premises) licenses will be available to Unified Communications Manager customers at no additional license cost. Customers can deploy Jabber IM for their entire enterprise, even for employees not currently using Unified Communications Manager for call control. Users can access Jabber IM across multiple platforms and devices, including Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Cisco Cius, Blackberry, Android, and web applications built using the Jabber SDK.
Q. When will the offer be orderable? Is this a promotion or permanent price change?
A. Orderability is expected in late May, with availability in early June. Currently, there is no end date to the offer.
Q. What are the benefits of this offer?
A. Customer Benefit: Cisco believes that voice and video call control and presence and IM provide the foundation for real-time communications. Jabber for Everyone lets customers simply and cost-effectively make presence and IM available to all users across all devices, while also ensuring that they are deploying a unified communications and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)-ready client. Once licensed for full collaboration, Jabber lets customers use any capability on any device, so they will be ready to move beyond IM to more advanced collaboration capabilities that can transform their business, such as mobile video that can call Cisco TelePresence.
Q. What features are included in the offer?
A. - File transfer - Presence status - Server IM logging - Client chat history - One-on-one and group chat - Experience: Only see IM features - Federations: Existing except AOL - Microsoft Office 2007/10 Presence and Click to IM (Windows) - Mobile: iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, Cisco Cius, Android (2HCY12) - Initiate, join Cisco WebEx meetings for Mac, Windows (2HCY12)
Q. Is there a limit to how many "free" users I can have?
A. No.
Q. Does the offer apply to both the Cisco on-demand and on-premises deployments of presence/IM?
A. No. The offer is for Cisco Unified Presence licenses used for premises-based deployments only. The WebEx Connect Presence and IM service is not included in the Jabber for Everyone offer.
Q. What capabilities are provided for IM-only users through the Jabber for Everyone offer?
A. The IM and presence capabilities for IM-only users include point-to-point chat, ad hoc group chat, IM history, multidevice IM, IM logging, network-based presence, and various enterprise federations and consumer federations.
Q. What clients can be used with this offer?
A. Any Jabber client can be used with this offer: Jabber for Windows or Mac OS as well as the Jabber IM for iOS, Android, or Blackberry (as available). In addition to the core IM services above, each client provides various Jabber features that are compatible with the OS deployment.
Q. Are there any server-side support limitations on the offer?
A. Integrations with third-party clients are not part of the offer, nor is persistent chat service.
Q. What versions of Cisco Unified Communications Manager are supported for this offer?
A. Existing Cisco Unified Communications Manager hardware can stay intact. If Cisco Unified Presence is not currently deployed, hardware or VM would need to be deployed to support IM. The supported hardware for Cisco Unified Presence can be found in the compatibility matrix
Q. How are Essential Software Support (ESW) and Unified Communications Software Subscription (UCSS) provided with the offer?
A. ESW and UCSS are provided for the offer as part of the existing ESW and UCSS contract for the User Connect License (UCL) and Cisco Unified Workspace Licensing user licenses for the main Cisco Unified Communications Manager deployment.
Q. What do I have to do at the administration level to set up the offer, if Cisco Unified Presence is already available?
A. There are several straightforward steps:
1. Make the Jabber client available to the end users.
2. Assign the end users the presence/IM capabilities on Cisco Unified Communications Manager.
3. Load the cop file onto Cisco Unified Communications Manager (download from Cisco Unified Communications Manager utilities folder on SW Center) to allow for assignment of Client and Presence to users at no additional license cost.
Q. What do I have to do if the customer does not already have Cisco Unified Presence?
A. All Cisco Unified Presence software and licensing is available as part of the offer. It is necessary to provide a hardware or VM platform on which the Cisco Unified Presence software can be installed and provisioned.
Q. What do I have to do if the customer already has Cisco Unified Presence?
A. If a customer already has Cisco Unified Presence, they would need to upgrade to version 8.6.4 for the Jabber for Everyone offer.
Q. Will Cisco pay the partner for installing this offer, or does a Cisco systems engineer do it?
A. No; the intention is that a customer either does the service or pays a partner to deploy.
Q. How will this change affect Cisco Unified Workspace Licensing?
A. The only capabilities enabled in the Jabber for Everyone offer are IM and presence. There is no call control, softphone, visual voicemail, or call history. So a UCL to enable this capability would also require the $50 full-feature client license plus an adjunct license. At that point, Cisco Unified Workspace Licensing standard is the better option.
Q. How can a Cisco Unified Communications Manager customer upgrade from a Jabber IM environment to full Jabber unified communications capabilities?
A. The customer would need to purchase the full Jabber unified communications client and the required UCL or Cisco Unified Workspace Licensing to support the client. The following example best explains how a customer would upgrade to the full Jabber unified communications capabilities: User A is a UCM user with a Cisco IP phone, is licensed with Enhanced UCL, and does not have Cisco Unified Presence IM and presence deployed. User A takes advantage of the Jabber for Everyone offer and adds Jabber IM for Windows to his desktop PC. If User A now wants to take advantage of the full unified communications capabilities of the Jabber for Windows client and use Jabber's soft client functionality as a secondary device to his desk phone, he needs to order an Adjunct License ($85) and Jabber for Windows UC client ($50). Or, as a cost-effective alternative, User A could upgrade to Cisco Unified Workspace Licensing Standard at a cost of $120 or $80, if he already has Cisco Unity or Unity Connection.
Q. Does the Jabber for Everyone offer include Cisco WebEx Connect?
A. No, the Jabber for Everyone offer does not include WebEx Connect presence and IM service.
Q. What about existing Unified Personal Communicator customers?
A. Existing customers can still use Cisco Unified Personal Communicator, for the users with Unified Personal Communicator currently. Those users will have IM and presence interoperability with the Jabber for Everyone Jabber clients.
Q. What support is available to my customer in the event of an issue?
Q. Do I need Deal Support Automation (DSA)? Are both Client and Presence server included?
A. No. This is a price change. New SKUs and ordering information will be provided as we get closer to orderability.
Q. What is the difference between this offer and the ciscojabbervideo.com offer?
A. The Cisco Jabber video for TelePresence offer is a separate offer to help our customers extend their TelePresence solution to their vendors and partners. The Jabber for Everyone offer provides IM and presence capability to the customer's full employee population.
Q. Do I have to upgrade the client when I purchase the full unified communications experiences such as video and voicemail?
A. No. It is a single software image. Once a user license is purchased that provides voice and video capabilities, simply update the user profile in Cisco Unified Communications Manager and configure the client to appropriate services.
Q. Do I have to buy UCSS and ESW?
A. No. The Jabber for Everyone licenses will not require ESW and UCSS. Support and upgrades will be covered under the customer's ESW and UCSS contract for their Cisco Unified Communications Manager deployment.
