Cisco has moved to reassure its legacy customers that it will continue to support and develop its on-premise technologies.
Its on-premise portfolio allows businesses to build, run, and manage their own networks, data centers, and services, including contact centers.
Some may have suspected Cisco would follow the lead of market competitors and stop innovating on-premise, nudging brands into the cloud.
However, in a blog post celebrating "30 years of partnership in Europe", Oliver Tuszik, EVP of Global Sales and Chief Sales Officer at Cisco, reaffirmed Cisco’s support in ensuring customer choice, control, and data sovereignty. He wrote:
Our longstanding experience in secure, reliable on-premises and isolated systems underpin(s) our approach to system control and continuity today.
SAP is perhaps the most notable tech vendor to have pushed businesses towards the cloud. It did so when announcing it would end its standard maintenance for its on-premise SAP ECC (ERP Central Component) and Business Suite 7 in December 2027, before ending support in 2033.
Yet, it’s far from the only enterprise tech stalwart. In the contact center space, Nuance Communications revealed last year that it would stop supporting its widely-implemented, on-premise IVR solutions by July 2026.
Before, Genesys announced it would stop innovating on its Genesys Engage on-premise platform and instead just keep it alive.
Historically, in the contact center infrastructure (CCI) market, these were two of Cisco’s top competitors, alongside Avaya and Mitel.
While Avaya and Mitel have also committed to their on-premise base, both have endured tricky headlines this year, with the former making global layoffs and the latter entering bankruptcy.
As such, many may have suspected Cisco to go all-in on the cloud, too.
However, while the tech giant could increase its short-term revenues by doing so, it believes that customers should get to plot out their own futures. As Tuszik continued:
Our on-premises technologies and global SaaS solutions give customers the power to choose the right deployment models for their operations, security postures, and strategic goals.
Yet, many of Cisco’s on-premise contact center customers will eventually want to move to the cloud.
In recent years, Cisco has invested significant funds into its Webex Contact Center to increase the cloud platform’s appeal and keep these brands’ business.