The News: Cisco and AT&T announced new solutions designed to enhance connectivity and advance the calling landscape for hybrid workforces. Read the full Press Release from Cisco here.
Cisco Live 2023: Cisco and AT&T Join Forces to Elevate Mobile Experience for Hybrid Workforces
Analyst Take: Cisco and AT&T are bolstering their longstanding relationship to bolster the overall mobile experience for hybrid workforces. The duo is offering new solutions that include Cisco’s Webex Calling and SD-WAN products alongside AT&T’s mobile network to enable businesses of any size to provide their workforce with a secure and consistent experience regardless of their setting.
The pair announced plans aimed at improving the mobile-first collaboration experience, giving users more flexibility to take calls across multiple devices regardless of location. With mobile phones increasingly established as a primary business device, enterprises require connectivity solutions that meet and augment mobile-first environments.
Now AT&T and Cisco are providing AT&T wireless smartphones with the native integration of Webex Calling to lock in single number mobile identity benefits that enhance on-the-go communications. AT&T Cloud Voice with Webex Go can allow users to securely make and receive business calls using AT&T’s mobile network and elevate calls to a fully immersive Webex collaboration experience. As a result, I see customers capitalizing on benefits such as eliminating fixed business line costs and universal secure collaboration capabilities.
Additionally, AT&T is rolling out AT&T SD-WAN with Cisco as a fully managed connectivity solution with embedded security and analytics aimed at enterprises, including their 5G and broadband services. The new solution seeks to broaden enterprise confidence in using a secure access service edge (SASE)-enabled architecture to connect a user or device to any application across multi-cloud enterprises.
As such, enterprises gain the end-to-end visibility that is key to attaining comprehensive organization-wide security and application optimization. Cisco will also provide the ability to embed AT&T wireless connectivity into Cisco devices that enable zero-touch provisioning for Cisco and AT&T customers, through AT&T Control Center powered by Cisco.
Moreover, I anticipate that the alliance can gain a sales and marketing boost for both the AT&T SD-WAN with Cisco and AT&T SASE with Cisco offerings through Cisco’s multi-year investments in AI and machine learning (ML) which underpin Cisco Secure Access, Cisco’s new security service edge (SSE) solution.
Through the Cisco Secure Access solution, I find that Cisco can directly strengthen AT&T’s ability to directly address the topmost security concerns of enterprise IT and security decision makers by using the solution to provide swifter detection and response and a common access experience features for key applications such as delivering a fully integrated security stack with AI-enhanced network performance analytics.
AT&T Enlists Cisco Meraki to Further Ease SMB Adoption of Secure Broadband Services
AT&T is targeting small and medium businesses (SMBs) with a new self-service option designed to streamline and accelerate SD-WAN deployment. Now businesses can connect, protect, manage, and scale their networks using AT&T Business Wi-Fi with Cisco Meraki. AT&T is offering a self-service digital purchasing experience targeted at SMBs, bundling fiber and mobility, and adding Cisco Meraki’s cloud managed solution.
In my assessment, the combined offering is critical to easing SMB adoption of SD-WAN and Wi-Fi as many SMBs don’t have dedicated IT staff to ease adoption of business connectivity sources. As a result, AT&T, in alliance with Cisco, can further ease and streamline SMB implementation of key business calling, connectivity, and collaboration services on a secure and reliable basis. AT&T already has over 99% reliability in delivering SMB services and offers additional security assurances, such as AT&T Active Armor Security, to give SMBs more peace of mind.
I also discern that AT&T and Cisco are well positioned to aid SMBs in advancing the alignment and integration of their video security needs with their network. From my perspective, video security, including smart cameras, can play an integral role in lowering business insurance rates. Many insurance firms offer discounts of anywhere from 5% to 20% if the business has an integrated alarm system with security cameras (according to Secure IT Securities).
Key Takeaways: Cisco Launches AI-Powered Security Cloud to Empower Enterprise Security Teams
Overall, I believe AT&T and Cisco are meeting the new demands of the hybrid workforce era through the new joint offerings highlighted by mobile-first capabilities such as native integration of Webex Calling with the AT&T Mobile Network, SD-WAN with add-on 5G and broadband, and self-service digital purchasing experiences aimed specifically at SMBs including Cisco Meraki cloud-managed solutions. Now businesses have a most compelling service offering that can securely connect everything and everyone across their hybrid workforce environments to help optimize their business outcomes.
Daniel Newman and his co-host of The Six Five Webcast, Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights and Strategy discussed Cisco Live 2023 in their latest episode. Check it out here and be sure to subscribe to The Six Five Webcast so you never miss an episode.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
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Author Information
Ron is an experienced, customer-focused research expert and analyst, with over 20 years of experience in the digital and IT transformation markets, working with businesses to drive consistent revenue and sales growth.
Ron holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy from University of Nevada — Las Vegas and a Bachelor of Arts in political science/government from William and Mary.
