Rarely are Cisco partner events quite as spectacular as MeetingZone’s ‘Spark the Future’ collaboration event. The venue was the 72nd floor of the Shard building in London. At over 300 metres the Shard is Western Europe’s tallest building and provided breathtaking panoramic views of the capital.
MeetingZone’s guests, which included over 100 customers, were treated to some fantastic London weather which made the event especially unique. The main purpose of the event was to enable MeetingZone and one of their largest collaboration and conferencing partners, Cisco, to showcase some of their latest solutions and provide insights into the best ways to deploy and utilise the technologies.
Special guest was Cisco’s Snorre Kjesbu who is Vice President & General Manager for the TelePresence and IP-Phone Business Unit. Snorre conducted a fascinating keynote speech with interactive product demos of some of Cisco’s latest hardware and software solutions. There were also sneak peeks at future developments that are yet to be released, including use of AI to enhance conferencing experiences. Snorre also delved deeper into the development of AI as an emerging technology and postulated that we are only in the most primitive stage of it’s development.
UC Today managed to catch up with Snorre after his presentation to discuss all things collaboration and you can hear the full interview in our latest Out Loud Cisco podcast. Snorre was delighted to be able to attend the event and told us how important partners like MeetingZone, and their events, are for Cisco.
“Being able to meet over 100 customers and get their feedback, talk to them, discuss with them, allows us to make better products and better offerings”
As well as the main presentation from Snorre, MeetingZone’s very own Jonathan George also provided and insightful presentation on the most effective ways of ensuring that technology deployments are effective. Jonathan, who is an expert guest for UC Today’s Out Loud Cisco podcast, explained that focusing on the ‘why’ before looking at technology solutions was critical for all business and a big focus for MeetingZone.
CEO of MeetingZone Steve Gandy was, justifiably, incredibly proud and pleased with the success of the event.
“The event has been absolutely excellent. We work very hard to be a good Cisco partner and understanding how we can specialise in helping our customers is critical to that. The guys have worked very hard on this event and you can see the results of that today.”
Subsequently it was reported by UC Today that MeetingZone will be sold, subject to the usual conditions, to LoopUp. Part of the reason that LoopUp have targeted MeetingZone may well be their incredibly close and productive ties with Cisco and their clear ability to successfully deploy their solutions in a way that benefits their customers dramatically. If any staff from LoopUp were attending the ‘Spark the Future’ event they will undoubtedly have been as impressed as we were.
