Cisco Room Series vs. StarLeaf (discontinued)

Its a fantastic software and hardware. However from time to time as tech improves, these may require a facelift. Maybe a subscription based model could work better so that it can be used widely instead of purchasing it at a full price. It may not be easily customizable for smaller businesses. It is very useful for large scale organizations that are spread out and need live meetings with a better video support.

Incentivized

StarLeaf is good because it is allowing our Company and global teams to create and conduct meetings and video calls. However, the mic often has issues as well as connection problems. The mobile app is excellent for joining the video conf calls.

Incentivized

• Cisco Room kits, it's a video conferencing system, so it has the, compared to the old systems where you use a webcam in a conference room, we don't see the person, the participants in the room. So with the installation of this kind of devices, it has a speaker fracking. So you can see the person, it clearly captures the speaker, whoever. So let's say that are 15, 20, people are sitting in a room if someone is speaking among them. So this camera is actually focused that person, so we can see that person. And it just shifts from one person to other based on the speaker and the webcam. If you're going back in the old days, like a webcam, using a webcam, it just gives an overview of the room. If someone is speaking, you don't know who is speaking unless you know the voice. So this is much greater. And you have so many other features like digital signage, you can display signage on the, so there's a lot of other features out there. So those are cool features I would say.

Incentivized

• Integrating teams around the world.
• The connection from StarLeaf to IBM Lotus Notes calendar is very useful.

Incentivized

• Perhaps any downside I might see is not necessarily with this product, it's more interoperability with other products. And I think these are all roadmap items that are being addressed. For instance, when you're in a Cisco meeting, it's not as feature rich as it might be as if you joined from a computer. However, as I said, these seem to be roadmap items which are coming along soon. Things like integration with the text or chat rather in a meeting, and also whiteboard integration.

Incentivized

• The microphone has lots of issues, specially in the beginning of calls.
• Quality of the sound sometimes is not the greatest.

Incentivized

By the time we are up for an upgrade, this particular series of products might not even been in the market. The typical product cycle for such products in the market are about 5 years. More importantly, the codec supported by such devices may also change by the time we are up for an upgrade. Even so, getting this system to a level of functionality we require was a frustrating ordeal that I do not look forward to during the next cycle.

Incentivized

A lot of the features are really easy. You can just click connect and you're in. But using all of these other integrations and all these other features that are there, it's kind of the blind leading the blind as to how we use it. So it's probably the downside of it.

Incentivized

Once the order was place we received very quickly

Incentivized

Great product with a great user experience

Incentivized

Cisco has always stood out for the excellent support and documentation on its products, this is one of the reasons why they are so well positioned. The means by which you can create a case and the response times are very good. I especially like the support through the Webex teams.

Never used the StarLeaf support team.

Incentivized

Very easy to implement. Integration into our Unified Communications platform was simple and quick

Incentivized

As a partner, I always used mainly Cisco products and offered them to my customers. I have personal experience with Avaya, Team and polycom but non of them provided me with the Premium feelings which Cisco does. Even the product quality and look of the product by itself gives you the premium experience. But I want to mention that Polycom has some features and easy setup which Cisco lacks sometimes. It is mainly 3rd party integration.

Incentivized

Microsoft Teams, when I used, was far better than StarLeaf, on video, sound, and feature connections.

Incentivized

The product and backend systems are designed to scale from small to very large organization seamlessly and easily

Incentivized

• With this system, our staff is able to collaborate remotely, eliminating the need for an expensive office space.
• So that HR can handle a steady workload, we can plan meetings using this tool.
• Facilitates problem solving, reducing the need for product replacement.

Incentivized

• The capability of creating meetings with global teams.
• The connection with Lotus Notes calendar helps the team to manage the calendar and the meetings scheduled.

Incentivized