Cisco Systems Unveils Color IP Telephone -- a Powerful New Platform for Network-Based Productivity Applications.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

Cisco ITC Expo

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 9, 2003

XML Developers at Cisco ITC Expo Demonstrate

Advanced Business Applications on Cisco IP Phones

Cisco Systems(R) (Nasdaq:CSCO) today announced a new Internet Protocol (IP) telephone with a high resolution, color touch screen, as well as enhancements to two of its entry-level IP phones, which enable a host of compelling new productivity applications that have the potential to greatly improve business processes.

The new Cisco color IP Phone 7970G, and XML support on the Cisco IP Phones 7905G and 7912G will be unveiled at the third annual Cisco Innovation Through Convergence Expo (ITC) Sept. 10-12 at the Westin Santa Clara Hotel in Santa Clara, Calif. The Cisco ITC Expo provides Cisco's growing community of Architecture for Voice, Video and Integrated Data (AVVID) partners the opportunity to showcase their innovative Extensible Markup Language (XML) applications running on Cisco AVVID networks.

Cisco has introduced five new IP phones in the last year, extending the company's industry-leading portfolio of IP phones, to meet the wide range of business user requirements. Building on the success of Cisco's existing IP Phone 7940G and 7960G with grey scale pixel-based displays, the Cisco IP Phone 7970G enables users to take advantage of a high resolution color graphics display and touch screen to gain desktop access to enhanced images and more detailed network data, improving employee productivity and customer satisfaction.

Cisco Color IP Phone 7970G

The Cisco IP Phone 7970G supports a comprehensive suite of advanced applications for mobility and collaboration, especially for workers in industry segments such as retail, hospitality, education and government. The IP phone's high-resolution color touch screen delivers high impact color graphics applications that make accessing and interacting with multi-media services faster, easier and more intuitive.

"The new Cisco IP Phone 7970G provides a high degree of flexibility for exciting new productivity applications," said Ken Bywaters, product manager at Berbee, a leading developer of XML applications and a Cisco IP Phone 7970G customer. "The color touch screen on the Cisco 7970G greatly simplifies access to real-time business data through the IP network. This allows employees to make the most informed decisions for businesses. For example, in the banking industry, 80 percent of incoming calls are requests to pull account information. With our Berbee Financial Connect Express application running on the Cisco IP Phone 7970G, customers can access detailed account information with one touch of the screen."

The Town of Palm Beach in Florida is using Berbee's Informacast XML application in its distributed work environment which includes nine remote sites. Informacast offers flexible voice and text paging services, enabling both inter and intra-departmental communications for the town's three fire stations and municipal information technology and human resources departments.

"Berbee Informacast delivers flexibility, cost savings and productivity improvements to our organization," said Jim Palmer, Systems Analyst for the Town of Palm Beach. "It makes communications much easier. What used to take an hour of phone calls can now be accomplished in minutes. We're extremely satisfied with the current solution."

XML Enhancements to Cisco IP Phones 7905G and 7912G

Cisco today also announced the availability of XML and network based application support on the entry-level Cisco IP Phones 7905G and 7912G. The added XML-support on these entry-level phones enables users to access business information using the monochrome pixel-based display, extending productivity applications to a broader range of users.

The Power of Applications on Cisco IP Phones

Cisco's growing portfolio of XML-enabled phones, such as the new Cisco IP Phone 7970G and enhanced 7905G and 7912G, as well as the 7940G and 7960G enable customization and integration, connecting business processes and people to critical information by providing display-based access to services and applications. Users can easily access information and perform tasks including:

-- Retail - Check customer order on the inventory tracking

database using an IP Phone while talking to the customer on

the phone -- including a tracking number, confirmation, and

delivery details

-- Hospitality - Use the displays on the IP Phones in hotel rooms

to make dining reservations, set up wake-up calls, purchase

attraction tickets, get directions, and check on flight status

-- Education - Take student attendance, locate students, issue

monitor passes and daily bulletins

-- Government - Communicate instantly with employees through

instant text messaging and audio streaming to all or selected

groups of IP Phones.

-- General Office - Access visual corporate directories with

photo images, identify the called or calling party, and touch

a section of a colored graph showing on the phone screen to

gather details on a statistic.

These applications and many more will be demonstrated at Cisco ITC Expo.

Cisco is the IP Telephony Market Leader

Cisco has shipped more IP phones than all of its competitors combined and is the ongoing market share leader for IP phones and IP telephony revenue, according to recent analyst reports from Synergy Research and Dell'Oro.

"Cisco is leading the way in delivering new IP Communications products, applications and solutions that deliver tangible business benefits to our customers today," said Don Proctor, vice president and general manager of Cisco's Voice Technology Group. "We recently sold our 2 millionth IP phone, doubling Cisco's installed base in the past 12 months. This trend clearly indicates the value businesses are placing on driving increased productivity through converged network applications."

Pricing, Availability and Further Information

The Cisco IP Phone 7970G will begin shipping by the end of the year and will be generally available in the first calendar quarter of 2004 for a list price of $995. The Cisco IP Phone 7905G and 7912G are available now for list prices of $135 and $165 respectively. The enhanced XML capabilities are scheduled to be available with the upcoming software release of Cisco CallManager near the end of calendar year 2003 at no additional cost. The next release of Cisco CallManager is planned to automatically add XML capabilities to installed base IP phones.

For additional information on these products, please go to: http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/prod_090903.html.

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