Cisco
Systems is introducing a new enterprise video content strategy,
along with new products that were designed to change the way enterprises
collect, share and consume corporate video content.
Video
has changed the way people do business, and that’s showing in data collected by
Cisco, said Guido Jouret, CTO of enterprise video at Cisco Systems. He noted
that 76 percent of executives watch video at least weekly, 71 percent will
increase usage of one-way video, and 93 percent of executives who watch
employee-created video actually comment, recommend, forward or rate the videos.
Cisco
has been focusing on providing video communications over the last few years
with products like WebEx and TelePresence, and although the company hasn’t
exactly been silent on the subject of stored content (both WebEx and Cisco
TelePresence products offer the ability to record and store video, for
instance), this new strategy and product category will shift more of its video
focus to stored content.
“Our
strategy is actually very simple. We want to make it easy, integrated and
pervasive,” Jouret said.
Cisco
enterprise video content strategy has four key goals – simplify how organizations
capture video from telepresence and videoconferencing endpoints to record or
stream across a network, adapt video so it can be viewed on any device or
application (as well as make it more easily navigable), make it easier to share
video to more devices (in particular mobile devices), and accelerate live and
on-demand video delivery across the enterprise to branch offices and remote
users.
One
of the key elements of this transformation is introducing video analytics into
Cisco Show and Share, the vendor’s webcasting and video sharing application.
The video analytics feature will be able to identify speakers based on their
voice imprint. Once speakers have been identified in a video, they will be
tagged in any videos in which they appear. Additionally, videos can be tagged
with keywords so they can be more easily searched. The analytics platform is
language independent, but keyword tagging is currently only available in
English.
“We
think the combination of these capabilities will help customers record and
consume a lot more video in the enterprise,” said Didier Moretti, vice
president and general manager of media experience and analytics business unit
at Cisco Systems.
Show
and Share had limited analytic functions prior to Cisco’s announcement, but now
it’s fully integrated to take advantage of the video analytic capabilities, he
noted. Additionally, Show and Share Mobile will also be made available on
October 30.
To
simplify video data capture itself, Cisco has integrated Cisco TelePresence
Content Server, the Cisco MXE 3500 Series (which has a new software release),
and Cisco Show and Share. According to Moretti, the integration of the three
products enables customers to record an HD video from a videoconferencing or
telepresence endpoint and then automatically post the video to Cisco Show and
Share. Users are now also able to stream videoconferences and telepresence
meetings directly into Show and Share.
“It’s
an important new category for Cisco. As customers are looking to do more with
video, video content is this new category that builds on the video infrastructure
and is very synergistic with it,” Moretti said.
He
added that this is the next major step on the way to having pervasive video.
