Meraki, the Cisco enteprise wireless and cloud network management division, expands towards voice with the Meraki MC74-- a cloud-powered voice platform packed into, well, a phone.
The MC74 features a clean design with a touchscreen offering the same "single-pane-of-glass" dashboard found in other Meraki products. Based on SIP architecture, it includes an endpoint, cloud license and service from a provider. According the company the result allows customers to combine voice calling with data networks, removing a possibly complicated element from their systems.
Phone and voice system controls come from the aforementioned touchscreen, with the only hardware buttons controlling volume and mute. Future updates should integrate the MC74 with other Cisco communications products, including the Spark messaging app.
Also announced by Meraki are a pair of wifi access points-- the MR52 and MR53, both able to handle the so-called Wave 2 of the 802.11ac standard. The MR52 offers MU-MIMO through 4x4 antennas handling 4 spatial streams over the 20, 40, 80 and 160MHz channels, while the MR53 adds futureproofing with multigigabit and 1-gigabit ethernet port options.
The MC74 should be available in European markets once Meraki's partners service providers able to deliver the required SIP capabilities.
Go Meraki MC74