Webconferencing on smartphones is an important step towards increasing business productivity

Recently, Cisco WebEx launched the web conferencing services on smart
mobile phones. So, how do you see a need for such web based service offerings on
smartphones in a country like India?

According to Gartner, worldwide mobile phone sales to the end users totaled
314.7 mn units in the Q1 2010, a 17% increase from Q1 2009. Smartphone sales to
the end users reached 54.3 mn units, an increase of 48.7% from Q1 2009. Growth
in the mobile devices market was driven by double digit growth of smartphone
sales in mature markets. Considering the way we have to work today, this
offering is an important step towards increasing business productivity. With
this solution available on all of these smartphones, workers will be able to
collaborate quickly and easily, thus getting business decisions made faster.

Since a huge amount of business people use smartphones, do you think web
conferencing service will be largely used by them and not by general people?

Irrespective of the type of user, the freedom that they will be able to gain
from using this solution will help to increase productivity because workers will
be able to work wherever and whenever they wish, using their chosen device.
There is no cost for attendees to join meetings on smartphones. Users must have
a current WebEx Meeting Center subscription to schedule or host a meeting on a
computer.

How dependent is the service on the bandwidth provided by the telecom
operators?

To use WebEx on a smartphone, users will need an active 3G cellular or Wi-Fi
connection. Users can also attend WebEx meetings on 2.5G phones but theyll need
to select only one media, either data or voice.

Today smartphones are mini-computing devices. So how much care has been
taken about the security issues?

All WebEx meetings are delivered on an on-demand Cisco WebEx Collaboration
Cloud, configurable for each organizations policy requirements. All of the data
exchanged in Cisco WebEx meeting applications is routed through the Cisco WebEx
Collaboration Cloud, a dedicated, secure and global network of data centers.
This network provides 24x7 accessibility. Whenever Cisco WebEx meeting
applications are used, the data is encrypted and hosted on this secure network,
and delivered to a variety of end points including desktops and mobile devices.

As 3G services are expected to be rolled out shortly in India, do you
expect that mobile and web based services will generate more business for Cisco
WebEx?

According to a Crisil Research Report, the launch of 3G services, network
deployment by new operators and rollout of long distance network will drive an
investment of around $55 bn over the next five years into the Indian telecom
sector. With the availability of applications such as Cisco WebEx Meeting Center
on a larger number of 3G smartphones, 2010 looks set to be the year when
enterprise applications like web conferencing become truly mobile, providing
workers with access to their corporate applications on the go.

Pankaj Maru/CMN

maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in