Cisco is done betting that customers will choose WebEx just because they already own Cisco hardware. In September, the company will launch Devices for Zoom Rooms, according to Cisco. The program puts a certified, native Zoom Rooms experience on select Cisco endpoints, including the Desk Pro G2, Room Bar, Bar Pro, Board Pro G3 and RoomKit.
That is a meaningful shift from where Cisco stood before. Customers who wanted a Cisco room with Zoom software have had to rely on standard SIP interoperability, a workaround that required extra integration work on the back end. The new program replaces that patchwork with a fully certified experience built into the hardware itself.
Cisco is not stopping at Zoom. The company is also deepening its Microsoft Teams Rooms integration, adding dedicated device management channels inside Control Hub and folding Copilot into its agentic tools, according to Cisco. Taken together, the moves signal a clear message: the meeting platform a customer picks, whether Teams, Zoom or WebEx, should not determine whether that customer gets a modernized Cisco room.
What it means for entrenched Cisco shops
Pearl Technology Executive Vice President Jeremy Caldera has spent years installing and supporting Cisco rooms for integration clients, and he called the announcement a genuine surprise. Cisco has long been known as a proprietary-first vendor, he said, and this represents a real shift in that posture.
“Cisco’s been the king of proprietary for how long?” Caldera said. “There’s still those clients who are wholly ingrained in the world of Cisco, but they’re still needing Teams rooms and Zoom rooms.”
Caldera does not expect the announcement to pull new customers into the Cisco ecosystem. Buyers who have already standardized on other hardware platforms are unlikely to switch because of this update alone, he said. However, he sees a clear winner in the deal: organizations already committed to Cisco hardware who previously had to maintain separate SIP-based workarounds to support Zoom or Teams rooms. Those customers no longer need that extra layer, and some had been quietly evaluating other manufacturers because of the added cost and complexity. This update removes that pressure point entirely.
The practical effect, Caldera said, is retention rather than expansion. Cisco protects the customers it already has instead of winning converts from Crestron, HP or other platforms. For AV integrators managing mixed environments, that still matters. Fewer custom SIP integrations mean less maintenance overhead and fewer points of failure in rooms that are already in production.
Why this lands differently in higher education
The higher education vertical offers a useful test case, because AV and IT are unusually intertwined there. Britt Yenser, AV Manager at Northampton Community College and an active member of the Higher Education Technology Managers Alliance (HETMA), said the Cisco-Zoom news speaks directly to a dynamic her sector already lives with daily.
“We say across the industry that AV is IT, but that is extremely true in higher ed,” Yenser said. “We are housed within the IT department. The more that we can communicate clearly with the other IT partners and meet them where they are, the more successful we can be.”
Cisco carries particular weight in higher education IT departments, where campus networking decisions are often made independently of the AV team and Cisco is frequently the default standard. Zoom and Google Meet, meanwhile, are common conferencing choices in that same environment. Before this announcement, an AV team wanting to standardize on Cisco hardware for a Zoom-based campus faced the same integration burden Caldera described. Now, that team can stay inside a hardware platform its IT department already trusts and supports, without a secondary integration layer.
That alignment matters beyond convenience. When AV and IT can standardize on shared hardware, the two departments have one less point of friction in a relationship that already requires constant coordination. A tech manager fighting for network resources or endpoint budget has an easier case to make when the AV hardware sitting on that network is the same brand IT already manages everywhere else.
The bigger picture for buyers
For corporate IT and AV decision-makers weighing a Cisco purchase, the calculus has changed only for a specific group: organizations already leaning toward Cisco hardware who need platform flexibility on the software side. For that buyer, procurement got simpler. Fewer vendors, fewer support contracts and fewer integration points reduce total cost of ownership over the life of the equipment.
For buyers who have not yet standardized on any single hardware platform, this announcement alone probably will not tip the decision. Platform interoperability is one of several factors in a room standardization decision, alongside cost, existing infrastructure and IT department preference. But it does remove one argument against Cisco that competitors could previously use: the idea that choosing Cisco meant locking into WebEx.
Cisco’s September launch will be worth watching closely, particularly for how the certified Zoom experience compares to native Zoom hardware from Zoom’s own certified partners. AVNation will continue to track how the rollout performs once it reaches customers.
Tim Albright is the founder of AVNation and is the driving force behind the AVNation network. He carries the InfoComm CTS, a B.S. from Greenville College and is pursuing an M.S. in Mass Communications from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. When not steering the AVNation ship, Tim has spent his career designing systems for churches both large and small, Fortune 500 companies, and education facilities.
- Tim Albright
- Tim Albright
- Tim Albright
- Tim Albright
