For the second year, Gartner has positioned Cisco as a Leader in the 2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications for Midsized Enterprises, North America.

We believe this is a significant achievement. Gartner puts a lot of analysis into these reports. Last year was the inaugural publication of this particular report. We're pleased in our leadership position for the second year running.

In the 2016 report, Gartner analysts evaluated Cisco and eight other vendors. Again Cisco was placed highest for ability to execute. As Gartner states in the report:

"Vendors in the Leaders quadrant have UC portfolios that are specifically positioned with features and functions to meet the needs of midsize businesses."

According to Gartner, leaders:

• Have user and management interfaces that are integrated and generally intuitive and easy to use
• Balance the need for customization with end users' desire for simplicity in their licensing structures, sales demos, and UC solution portfolio
• Have mature channel programs with distinct processes for presales and postsales support.

In our submission, we included Cisco Business Edition 6000 (BE6000) as well as Cisco Spark to address both on-premises and cloud offerings.

BE6000 packaged solutions are for midsize deployments from 35 to 1,000 users. They feature comprehensive on-premises capabilities in single virtualized appliance that is easy to deploy, manage, and use. This means you can prioritize use cases, selecting from applications for:

• VoIP telephony
• Mobility
• presence and chat
• video conferencing
• omnichannel customer care

But what if you want the flexibility to deploy some UC services on premises and to consume others as cloud services? We believe in offering choice, without compromising on consistent, simple and delightful user experiences. Cisco Spark Hybrid Services allow you to combine BE6000's on-premises call control with Spark's next-generation, mobile-first business messaging and meetings.

Congratulations and thanks to the development teams, customers, and partners who continue to help us to improve our midsize UC offers. Thanks also to the customers and partners who helped the Gartner analysts with their research.

We continually evolve and improve our offerings.   BE6000 continues to get even better. Available in late July/early August, the Collaboration Systems Release 11.5 build of BE6000 will feature the latest versions of our UC infrastructure applications. The updates will also include a new license option for Prime Collaboration Analytics Business, which provides cost-effective monitoring, diagnostic and reporting option. Meanwhile, we're working with our partners to further simplify installation of BE6000 solutions.

Download the full 2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications for Midsized Enterprises, North America report.

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This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The Gartner document is available upon request from Cisco Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. You may not use "customized" graphics from Interactive Mag Gartner: Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications for Midsize Enterprises, North America, Megan Marek Fernandez, Bern Elliot, 25 May 2016.