Why Apple's Tim Cook just made a surprise appearance at Cisco's humongous sales conference
Cisco announced the deal at its huge conference for its 20,000-plus salespeople in Las Vegas this week, and included a surprise visit by Apple CEO Tim Cook.
As Cisco put it in the press release, the company "create a fast lane for iOS business users by optimizing Cisco networks for iOS devices and apps, integrating iPhone with Cisco enterprise environments and providing unique collaboration on iPhone and iPad."
Cisco is the big kahuna in the computer network world, both in supplying gear for the internet and to private networks that companies build for their own employees. It's networking gear is used by 95% of the Fortune 500. And nearly all of them have employees using iPhones and iPads.
The agreement has three parts. The two companies are going to make it easier for iOS devices to connect to the network and for their apps to work flawlessly. And Cisco is also going to tie its collaboration tools more tightly with iOS devices.
For instance, it will let iPhones work better with Cisco desk phones and telepresence equipment (for video conferencing), as well as Cisco tools like Spark (group conferencing/chat) and WebEx (online meetings).
Apple has now made two huge partnerships to help it sell more iOS devices (particularly iPads) to the business world. Last year it teamed up with IBM to help develop apps for the iPad, and that deal is going strong. Now it's added Cisco.
Several years ago, Cisco tried to build an Android tablet called Cius specifically for work, but it didn't sell well and Cisco soon killed the product. The tablet was supposed to help Cisco grow its collaboration business. Right now, the bulk of Cisco's revenues come from its networking equipment and Cisco's' new CEO is tasked with diversifying.
To celebrate the new partnership, Tim Cook came to Las Vegas and made an appearance on stage, as did recently retired Cisco CEO John Chambers.