Cisco Live showcases new offerings in its first hybrid event

Cisco Live 2022 has seen Cisco executives and customers take the stage to present a range of discussions in the company's first-ever hybrid event.

The hybrid Las Vegas event, which began on June 12 and will run until June 16, comes after Cisco hosted all-digital Cisco Lives in 2020 and 2021.

It is anticipated that 15,000 people will attend in person, with countless people tuning in to the live-streamed event worldwide.

Cisco executives, including chair and CEO Chuck Robbins, are taking the stage at the event, with customers such as Amazon, City of Las Vegas, Ford, McLaren Racing, and Starbucks also included.

The event is also featuring innovation talks, hands-on labs, and leadership and technical education sessions, with guests such as actress Mindy Kaling, as well as Grammy award-winning, Academy Award-nominated musician and filmmaker, entrepreneur and philanthropist Pharell Williams, who is discussing the role of tech in education and future of work.

The event will culminate with a celebration and performances from Dave Matthews Band and Britany Howard.

"Through the challenges and unpredictability of the past few years, I believe we've seen the true power of technology," Cisco chair and CEO Chuck Robbins says.

"Digital transformation remains core to every business as we navigate this complex world alongside our incredible customers and partners.

"I'm excited for us to share our latest innovations with our customers this week at Cisco Live to continue to help them transform and adapt.

New technologies that have been announced at Cisco Live 2022 include offerings for its networking, security, collaboration, and optimised applications portfolios to assist companies in fostering greater productivity, resiliency and agility in the hybrid work model.

One such offering is new cloud management capabilities that provide a unified experience across the Cisco Meraki, Cisco Catalyst, and Cisco Nexus portfolios, as well as a new Cisco ThousandEyes product to take WAN performance to a new level.

Moreover, Cisco has unveiled its new strategy for a global, cloud-delivered, integrated platform delivering secure access and connectivity for businesses of any shape and size.

The Cisco Video Phone 8875, which the company says is the industry's first phone for hybrid work, is a new offering that maximises productivity and reduces meeting fatigue for hot-desking employees as it becomes the new normal in the workplace.

It features improvements to Webex Calling, part of the Webex Suite, enabling greater work flexibility, reliability, and audio.

In addition, ThousandEyes has been integrated into Webex Control Hub to offer better user experiences by allowing IT admins to proactively monitor app performance issues.

Further, Salesforce and Oracle Eloqua are now integrated into Webex Webinars to provide flexible workflows for greater productivity.

The company has also launched AppDynamics Cloud, a cloud-native observability platform for modern applications based on increasingly complex, distributed architectures and services.

Cisco's Panoptica and Calisti apps are the latest additions to its suite of cloud-native, API-first tools.

They allow for quicker application development cycles and give organisations modern application connectivity, security, and observability crucial to enabling stronger digital experiences.

Cisco is previewing forward-looking technology in its 'World of Solutions' at Cisco Live, including:

Transforming automotive travel

A Ford Mustang Mach-E is previewing Webex Meetings in-car capability, and attendees will also see a demo of Cisco-connected roadways and intersections in action.

Real-world hybrid workspace

Attendees can enter Cisco's hybrid workstations to test the latest technology that enables a new way of working.

Immersive 3D collaboration

Webex Hologram will allow attendees to see the industry's only real-time meeting offering that takes advantage of augmented reality headsets to combine feature-rich Webex meeting functionality with immersive 3D holograms.

Extending video communications and collaboration into deep space

Callisto is a vehicle-connected crew interface technology that will be on board the Orion spacecraft for NASA's Artemis I mission powered by Cisco, Lockheed Martin and Amazon.

The fastest autonomous car

Attendees will see the Cisco-powered car that set the land speed record for autonomous vehicles (over 190 MPH).

Asynchronous video messaging

Vidcast, part of the Webex Suite, enables users to easily record, edit and share video messages without waiting for calendars to align to meet live.

The company is also previewing AI-powered editing features that make it easier for users to create professional videos, with the ability to use the transcript to clip/edit the video, remove filler words, and in the near term, use custom text-to-speech models for insertions or overdubbing.