Cisco eyes larger share of Indian SMB pie

Bangalore

July 11th, 2007

Networking major Cisco has extended the scope of its unified communications (UC)
solutions to Indian small and medium-sized businesses, in an apparent bid to
aggressively tap the SMB market. The company announced new products and
applications that allow organizations to use their network as a platform for
more effective and more personalized business collaboration.

UC is an "end-to-end secure" platform, which provides
virtualization, mobility, video, data, and presence. In mobility, Cisco has
integrated with Nokia, Samsung and BlackBerry.

Cisco Unified Communications system 6.0 is a comprehensive communications
system for voice, video and data. This launch is expected to introduce
capabilities that would improve the productivity of mobile employees and
cost-effectively deliver Unified Communications to SMBs.

Cisco solutions would soon be integrated with Motorola mobiles, informed
Manjula Talreja, senior director, customer business transformation, voice
technology group, Cisco.

"The overall growth of UC year over year is 50 per cent and SMB is going
to be the fastest growing market," said Minhaj Zia, business development
manager, UC, India and SAARC. "The India UC overall market is worth $310
million and in the SMB segment, the opportunities for enterprises in IP
Telephony market is $177 million. We want to address this segment in
India."

In the SMB segment, Zia added that the products are targeted at the IT,
financial services, retail and pharmaceutical sectors to enhance their customers
experience and to reduce the total cost.

According to an Access Markets International Partners report, the Indian SMBs
are set to invest $1.2bn to boost their overall Internet infrastructure and
solutions in 2007, a rise of $300m over last year.

Cisco had last year launched innovative marketing plans for targeting SMBs,
such as the 'Network On wheels ('NOW'), a mobile showcase of its networking
solutions range that was showcased across key cities in India.

The networking major is also looking at acquiring more companies to increase
its UC business in India by over 40 per cent. "We have recently acquired
Metreo and Orative, and we are looking at similar acquisitions in line with the
Cisco's growth strategy especially in the UC space," Talreja added.

Cisco also launched the UC 500 series for SMBs and UC manager Business
edition for mid-sized businesses. In Mobility Cisco has launched Unified mobile
communicator and Unified Wireless IP phone 7921G that enables wide area wireless
mobility, remote worker mobility and campus mobility.