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Cisco Webex sees surge in users as companies operate remotely
In the first 20 days of March alone, there had been an accumulated 7 billion minutes of meetings on Webex, the company’s data indicates.
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President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo holds a teleconference from Bogor Palace on March 16. (JP/Press Bureau of the Presidential Secretariat/Muchlis)
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eb conferencing platform Cisco Webex has seen a surge in usage numbers as companies and education institutions around the world switch to working remotely and distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, the company’s data indicates.
The company recorded 4 million meetings globally on March 18 alone, nearly double the number of meetings that took place on its platform before the outbreak. In the first 20 days of March, there had been an accumulated 7 billion minutes of meetings on Webex, with the duration of the meetings 22 percent longer than usual.
The company also saw a drastic increase in users signing up on its platform. On March 16, the number of newly registered users reached 240,000.
“What we are doing now [is that] we want to help businesses in Indonesia, communities [and] the education sector with free services. Anyone can use Webex for free,” Cisco Systems Indonesia managing director Marian Kacaribu told reporters on March 26 via a video conference on the Webex platform.
“We hope that it can help enterprises and the continuity of business so that it can minimize the impact [of the pandemic] on productivity and the economy,” she added, explaining that before the outbreak, the company had only offered a 40-minute limit to its free services.
As of now, Cisco Systems Indonesia is offering a broad range of free services, including an unlimited number of meetings, capacity of up to 100 people in every meeting without a limit in duration, unlimited messaging, as well as access to Webex Teams, team collaboration services where users can conduct group chats, video calls, share documents and use collaboration tools such as the whiteboard feature.
Marina said considering there had been a spike in usage, the company had made sure that its backend system could support the growing number of users and would continually adjust its capacity to enhance user experience.
Security is also an aspect the company prioritizes. Webex has installed a user verification system so that companies and other institutions can be certain that their virtual rooms can only be accessed by their employees or other designated members.
For additional protection, the company is offering a 90-day trial for its Cisco Umbrella and Cisco AnyConnect, in which the former feature serves as the first line of defense against threats on the internet and the latter simplifies secure endpoint access. The offer will be available until July 1.
In the education sector, Cisco Systems Indonesia has been collaborating with the Education and Culture Ministry to help support the ministry’s distance learning program. Other education institutions that were already on the platform, for example, Gadjah Mada University (UGM), have strengthened their coordination with the company to scale-up operations.
Marina noted that UGM would conduct up to 8,000 online courses over Webex..
