Cisco UMI: Coming to a business near you

Month’s ago most pundits torched UMI, Cisco’s high-end home telepresence offering.

They said it was too expensive. They said no-one would pay $24.95/month for video calling.

Oh and who were they supposed to call?

Yesterday, while flushing Flip down the toilet Cisco announced that UMI would be rolled into their business telepresence unit. I guess the pundits were  right.

Or were they?

Cisco is a marketing machine. Anyone “in” the industry would’ve told you that UMI makes sense as a business product - not a consumer one.

But business products are boring. No one (even those selling) seem to care about them.

Consumer products? That’s the another story.

Launch a revolutionary new way to communication with friends and family right from the convenience of your own home? Now that’s going to get everyone talking.

Exactly what happened and though the overall reaction was perhaps not what Cisco had originally intended, it certainly made UMI a rather well known product.

The same would not have happened had it been a business product.

So like the marketing machine that is Cisco, they’ll take that initial awareness campaign, swallow their pride and deliver this solution into the small business.

Probably what they had planned to do anyways…