Catching Up with Zeus Kerravala

Summary

On this episode of Catching Up with, the Collab Collective's Craig Durr speaks with Zeus Kerravala, Principal Analyst at ZK Research, at WebexOne 2024. They explore the latest innovations in Unified Communications, AI-driven collaboration tools, and hybrid work strategies unveiled at the event.

Their Discussion Covers:

• AI-Powered Collaboration Tools: Zeus Kerravala and Craig Durr delve into how Cisco's AI advancements are redefining employee and contact center experiences.
• Sustainability in Design: Craig Durr highlights Cisco's new approach to eco-friendly device development and their commitment to sustainable practices.
• Workspace Designer Tools: Zeus Kerravala explains the capabilities of Cisco's Workspace Designer, a tool revolutionizing room configuration and device optimization.
• Hybrid Work Evolution: Craig Durr and Zeus Kerravala provide insights into flexible solutions shaping the future of work, including the balance between remote and in-office setups.

Transcript

Zeus Kerravala: Welcome to ZCast, everyone. I'm Zeus Kerravala from ZK research and I'm here at WebexOne in Fort Lauderdale with Craig Durr from The Collab Collective.

Craig Durr: Hey everyone this is Craig Durr, Chief Analyst and Founder of The Collab Collective.

Zeus Kerravala: Good, we're here. The show just wrapped up but is great–WebexOne. There was lots of product innovation, especially on the UC side, which was good to see because Cisco has obviously put a lot of effort into the contact center business, and it's good to see that they're also innovating on the unified communication side.

Craig Durr: I love it. You know because in the contact center they really toned in on this idea of customer experience on the UC side, they're embracing the term employee experience. So they're thinking about it from an employee perspective from a lot of different points of view. 

Zeus Kerravala: Now, they announced a lot of stuff and the thing that got the most applause, and I thought that was kind of funny, was the ceiling. And even when we unveiled it it was very Apple-like. You know, they had the ceiling mic come off the screen, and they showed it in the box. Things like that. I know part of the reason was because the last product wasn’t very good, but what do you think?

Craig Durr: You know, you're right. Like, really? For a ceiling mic? But there's some underlying things if you know some of the nuances of that. So you hit the first thing, in their previous portfolio they had a ceiling mic but it was analog. It had a piece of plastic glass that you held up and stuff, so it wasn't really that good. So in combination with what they're doing with their table mics in this and doing this digital audio element with all these MEMS mics, they kind of completed a portfolio. So for the sales team going out in motion, now they have these really good products that they can talk to small, medium, large rooms–and those big rooms with that, too.

The other thing, like I said, was the technology, too. So now, instead of just being this analog, and I need to have this piece of plexiglass to direct in the right area they can now manage it. So they can manage the pickup, what's taking place–it's dynamic. So it not only supports these speaker modes, but think about their cinematic camera mode. Now they have a really good opportunity to pick that up, too.

And then the last thing which is subtle, you and I had more insights than maybe the general audience. This is the first thing they're launching under this new design language we're talking about. And what they're doing is they're doing design from the top from sustainability they're thinking about that now, not as an afterthought. So some of the cool things are–there's no plastics in this, everything is reusable. The size is smaller although it just still looks bigger than what they originally designed, which means the packaging is smaller. So you know, they've accomplished a lot of things with this just being the tip of the sphere 

Zeus Kerravala: Yeah, in fact Cisco devices have always had good design, but it wasn't consistent from device to device. So I think the design language–they talked a lot about that and how it's everything, from the look and feel to the way they're covered, like all that's going to be more consistent.

Craig Durr: Yeah, it's a good thing. We talked to Gavin Ivester; he did some presentations with us. He had some really good information around what they're doing around the devices.

Zeus Kerravala: Yeah, and so to take advantage of that, they also announced something called a Workspace Designer, which I thought was great. I think when you're thinking about building a room, there's so many options, large screen, small screen. What kind of mic do I put in? Do I need a ceiling mic? You know, what kind of camera do I need? This tool now allows you to go in, and you can think of it as a digital twin of a conference room. And you can play with different configurations. And it'll show you that the screen's too small, so you're going to reach here. That mic's not going to work in that environment. It'll allow you to optimize the technology. You think of the way you do it now, you put stuff in, that doesn't work. Now we're going to have to take the technology up, to put some new stuff in. Just make sure that whatever you deploy in there, is right for that room.

Craig Durr: Exactly, right. You know there's been online tools like this before from other vendors. But this one, you can adjust the size of the room, the size of the table, the number of people in the room, to really hone in on what your specific room looks like. And then you get these different views. I can see what it looks like from the top, I can see what it looks like at the end of the table. And the coolest thing I like about that is you finish up and you push a button, and it has what it calls a blueprint. And it goes down where it outlines, not only the recipe of all the hardware needs but what is that room dimension, what's it’s information. So you can use this not only for IT but for facilities, even for HR to say, “This room is now optimized for X number of people.” Things like that.

Zeus Kerravala: Yeah, and then it works in Microsoft Teams rooms. 

Craig Durr: I know it does. They did show that. Interestingly enough, talking about that real fast. They've alluded to that they are probably one of the largest growing providers of Microsoft Teams room devices with their Webex devices in that mode. It's an interesting statement they made.

Zeus Kerravala: Yeah, in fact I know they've been seeding a lot more devices out there specifically for Teams rooms, which has allowed them to keep a lot of customers maybe they wouldn't have in the past. And I've talked to Microsoft about it. They like the Cisco devices–they'll tell you they really are best in class. They're loaded with AI features.

I think you know, Snorre Kjesbu, GM device has talked about this. That was like in 2015 before AI was cool. They actually cut the partnership with Nvidia. So I remember when Rowan was running the group and they had spark boards, not the Cisco boards. I remember him telling me that there's seven GPUs in a board to help with audio and video and things like that. And so all that work they put in a decade ago is now paying off today.

Craig Durr: Yeah, to be able to have that known working code on top of this Nvidia chipset, a lot of these people may only be beginning to develop. A lot of them went for the Qualcomm route as well. So they have a lot of power in those boards and those devices to play with.

Zeus Kerravala: Yeah, now they also did a big push on their Webex AI Assistant. I think one of the interesting aspects of the way they're doing AI is they're thinking across Cisco. And so your AI assistant, the security group will be the same one in the network… will be the same in Collab, which is probably the right way to do it. I'm not sure, it's hard for me to understand whether this Webex system is better than Zoom AI, Microsoft’s.

In fact, at Zoomtopia, Zoom put up a chart that said, theirs is 36% more accurate than Teams, and I'm sure for whatever test they ran, it was. I think if you ask Microsoft, they can go get a test scenario that showed them it’s more accurate in theirs. The only way for customers to know is to run it themselves. So we're in the very early stages, and I think it's hard for customers to really differentiate between them.

Craig Durr: I did. Now, here's the other thing I need to figure out, do some more research on with their AI assistant, especially going through all these different workloads. One of those key things from an end user point of view is how persistent is the information I generate. Let's say if I'm in a chat that’s gonna be available to me, let’s say I'm in a meeting. So this has only been revealed it hasn't been released as of yet. So I haven't had a chance to play with it, but that's going to be a key element I'm going to look for. What's the persistence of the information generated across all those different workloads?

Zeus Kerravala: Yeah, I'm curious to see how companies leverage these things, too. Because I do know even with things that catch me up, you can get to meetings late, calls will be missed. I've also talked to some users that say, supervisors especially, they don't attend as many meetings because they know they can just get the summary of it later where they might have had to before. And I think that's a legitimate use case like maybe if you're a sales supervisor, you don't need to be on the call, but you need to make sure that the salesperson hit the key topic, key points. And you might have attended before, which would take an hour of your time, and now you can just read the summary.

Craig Durr: Oh that's interesting because there's this school of thought like, “If I could do it in the summary maybe I don't need the meeting.” But I see the use case you're talking about, that's good.

Zeus Kerravala: Yeah, so we'll see how that gets adopted and then the other question is from here, where do you go, right? Zoom went down the path of tasks. You know Cisco is looking a lot more in the area of insights. 

Craig Durr: That’s true, and it's interesting. They've talked about three different audiences when I was talking to the devices group. So we're talking about the end user experience, they're doing a lot around the IT administrator. So they showed on stage today something along the lines of insights in terms of rooms, which other people are doing, but the ability to use an AI assistant to quickly remediate problems and not only remediate for one but across your whole portfolio. And then doing actually some stuff on the installer part, a lot of push-button opportunities. The ceiling mic, that was a great AI-driven demo where they said just pushing this button helps configure and set it up in the room–very Sonos-like, those old speakers in the room.

Zeus Kerravala: In fact, I think that’s an area on the IT side. I think that's an area they really lead the industry. Control Hub has been fantastic, and in fact if you talk to Teams customers managing those MTR devices in Control Hub is actually better than the Microsoft tools. 

Craig Durr: It's true. You know it goes back to, actually I'm thinking about the first keynote when G2 is on stage, right? One of the values now is, he is Chief Product Officer across the company. Control Hub is such a powerful entity, and we can see how ThousandEyes is being brought into there as well. I'm curious to see what's going to take place across security or maybe even networking, if that's going to be pulled in. And is it going to be clean, concise? What's going to take place there?

Zeus Kerravala: Yeah, so that's something I've been talking to Cisco about for a while, trying to figure out what they're doing there. Maybe I've been a little over-under, but I sort of joke that there's no benefit in being the market leader in single panes of glass. Now, in actuality, what the networking team uses with Catalyst Center is unique to what a Collab administrator might use with Control Hub. But there does need to be data across those two ‘cause there are some people that might need, like you might want on the network team, might want to know what's going on with the devices in order to help them plan network traffic and things. And then same with the security consoles and ThousandEyes and things like that.

Craig Durr: Got it. So you're alluding to this backend AI exchange, not necessarily on the front of the glass taking place.

Zeus Kerravala: Well, I think you need separation of functionality, but you also do need some front end integration. To me, that's the hard part with a portfolio company like this that addresses multiple audiences. You can't bring everything, again, there's not one platform through all, but you can't have a bunch of different platforms that do their own things. I guess this is part of G2’s job. It's why he's getting paid the big bucks to figure it out.

Craig Durr: Here I'm going to close with a question you weren't expecting. One year from now, Webex 2025, what would you like to see in terms of what we're talking about here at this event like this?

Zeus Kerravala: Well, that's a great question. I guess I'd like to see some more advancements in AI and some good use cases but also some quantifiable benefits and for customers to understand when to use “what” and “how”. I think part of the problem is there's so many, you know they say, “We're very flexible.” “You can use this model or this model.” Well, I don't know, like… Is Llama better than Meta better than Open AI, right?

And I think Cisco does big really well, maybe better than anybody, and I think they need to help the customers figure out how to bring all these different components of AI together and actually roll out in a way that's usable by people but also the benefits are measurable. I actually think the ROI on AI is a temporary thing that we think about. Because I remember early in my career we used to talk about the ROI being on the internet. Nobody asked that now because it just is, right? And I think right now, we're asking those questions. I think 10 years from now we won't ask that question, but while we're in this deployment phase, they do need to be able to answer that. 

Craig Durr: Yeah, I agree with you. I think we are seeing some, what appears to be practical use cases in the Contact Center space, right? And that's applicable and they've got some great features in this uCast space, too. I just want to see how that evolves. What's the next story taking place in terms of these? So like you said, other competitors out there are leaning into summaries and tasks and then go to the next level. So I'm curious where these guys are going to take all these AI features and start creating a holistic story.

Zeus Kerravala: Yeah, I think it would help too if the industry determined whether, you know I came to some conclusion as to whether we're going to have people in office or not.

Craig Durr: That's true. I mean, actually, hybrid work was mentioned once or twice here, surprisingly AI was the entire thing talked about.

Zeus Kerravala: Yeah, but it looks like more and more companies are pulling employees back like Dell's announcement–all sales people back in the office, gave no notice. But the more people back in the office, the certainly good for the device business, right?

Craig Durr: It is. I think, no matter what, we're in a new way of work–call it modern work. There's still some element of distributed work and so we still have to kind of connect those.

Zeus Kerravala: The good thing for Cisco I suppose is that, I don't know what the future work looks like. Again, it could be everyone remote or everyone in office, and every possible combination in between. And that's what IT is here for, it's that every possible combination between. So you need a lot of flexibility, right? Even when Snorre was talking about their Oslo office where they had one low, one room that was big that was being used by small groups, they chopped it up in three. I think that's an area where as we mature with people in the office there will be some office redesign.

Craig Durr: You know, what’s interesting and maybe it's the idea that I would wrap up on. They were leaning in on AI as being a smart building technology, and I think what you're talking about is some use cases about that as well. So not only with their spaces and stuff and sustainability story as well but they're also talking about optimizing use cases and stuff like that. So it's one of the ways that they're trying to bring this, at least to companies that have multiple buildings or footprints. How they can make it practical and applicable.

Zeus Kerravala: Yeah, all right. Anything else you want to add?

Craig Durr: I think we got it all.

Zeus Kerravala: Yeah, so that's great. So from WebexOne, on behalf of Craig Durr, Zeus Kerravala from ZK research, thanks for watching. Hit that subscribe button. I'll see you next time on the next episode of Zcast.

Craig Durr: Right down there. Subscribe.