Cisco links Webex to ThousandEyes internet intelligence

Control Hub templates

Cisco also introduced Control Hub templates that let IT staff assign collaboration policies to user groups. For example, templates might prevent some people from sharing files while messaging or meeting with people outside an organization. IT could restrict others to screen-sharing with only people inside the company.

IT managers can have the template settings applied to new employees when joining a group, reducing the time to onboard workers.

Another Control Hub advancement is a streamlined process for provisioning individuals, groups and domains into Webex from Azure Active Directory (AD). IT administrators could provision from Azure AD before, but the process required a dozen steps to complete the configuration. Also, they had to manually verify domains in Webex, even if they were already in Azure AD.

Other new features let administrators map people's profiles and avatars in Azure AD to Webex user profiles, eliminating the need to update profiles manually. As a result, profiles in Azure AD and Webex are always in sync.

For regulated industries, such as banking and law firms, Cisco has added Control Hub features that establish communication barriers between some groups. For example, administrators could prevent legal teams representing a firm's competing clients from communicating.

Overall, the latest announcements focus on improving the Webex platform for IT professionals. "A business can't deliver an outstanding user experience if the IT pro is fighting fires," Kerravala said.

A pain point Cisco doesn't address is the lack of support for other unified communication and collaboration products, IDC analyst Richard Costello said. Companies typically use multiple products, each with separate management tools.

"In that regard, third-party UC&C management tools and solutions may offer better and more robust options," he said.

The quality of management tools is a critical component when comparing Teams, Zoom and Webex, analysts said. Another factor is how well the unified-communications-as-a-service products let corporate workers collaborate, whether in the office or at home.