John Chambers has often commented publicly about how Cisco's innovation engine is on "fire." Within Cisco's Collaboration and Endpoint Technology Group (CETG), we certainly feel that way.

I just got word that independent industry analyst firm Frost & Sullivan has awarded Cisco its 2015 Market Leadership Award for IP Endpoint Communications. The award encompasses our desktop IP phones and DX Series, and our Cisco Jabber soft-client offerings. Coming on the heels of Red Dot design awards we received for our room systems, it's another validation of our progress.

Frost & Sullivan recognized us for our relentless pursuit of technology excellence, and for our ability to maintain leadership positions in a fast-paced, rapidly evolving market.

I thought it would be worthwhile to share some comments from Frost & Sullivan to add insight.

Highlights noted in the report include:

• Growth Strategy Excellence:We consistently identify, prioritize, and pursue emerging growth market opportunities. Examples include our IP phone innovations over the years and the introduction of the DX Series multi-modal collaborative endpoints. They call Cisco a "true one-stop shop for enterprise IP communications endpoints."
• Implementation Excellence:Our customers represent the largest installed base of desktop IP phones and UC clients in the industry, growing from 1 million in 2002 to more than 70 million in 2014.
• Brand Strength:Our commitment toward sharing our vision, direction and overall strategy. The award cites Cisco as the technology partner of choice for most of the world's top service providers, independent software developers, resellers and enterprise customers alike, and that Cisco's brand is "synonymous with high technology reliability, advanced functionality, and industry innovation."
• Technology Leverage:We have embraced and committed to customer-centric innovation to meet the evolving requirements of businesses. With our intensive focus on industrial design and considerable investment in R&D, we are uniquely positioned to deliver a wide range of collaboration endpoints that are easy to use and manage, such as:
  • HD video and audio, personal mobile device, and low-power integrations with our latest 7800 and 8800 Series IP phones.
  • Cisco Jabber 11.0, which delivers broader telephony experiences and a new/consistent user experience across devices.
  • Cisco Spark, built mobile-first for agile teams, delivers multi-modal collaboration to increase team productivity.
• Customer Purchase Experience:Customers can use flexible deployment models (on-premises, hybrid, cloud) with our IP endpoints. Analysts recognized how we blend rich endpoint functionality with business apps to improve collaboration efficiency.

On behalf of Cisco Collaboration and the Endpoint Technology Group, we wish to thank Frost & Sullivan for this prestigious award. We are very honored to receive it.

We also wish to thank you - our customers and partners - for your continued partnership and feedback. You enable and drive us to continue our innovation engine. And you inspire us to deliver the most delightful user endpoint experiences the industry has to offer.

Learn more about Cisco's latest innovations within the IP endpoints portfolio with these resources:

• IP Phone 8800 Series
• IP Phone 7800 Series
• Cisco DX Series
• Cisco Jabber and Jabber Guest

And you can read the award and press release from Frost & Sullivan here:

Global Market Leader Award

Press Release (Frost.com)