I’ve seen on LinkedIn that they are donating DX80s to hospitals. It appears to me as if they are just taking used equipment from the offices, disinfecting them, and sending them off. Most other companies are donating money, and DX80s are pretty long in the tooth. Pretty sure Tandberg made them before the acquisition, so that would be 10 years ago. What’s the real story here? Is it true altruism, tax writeoff and free publicity for old products they were going to toss anyway, or what? From here, its pretty obvious what it is, but maybe I’m missing something.
6 replies (most recent on top)
Yeah they're offloading old equipment just a little sooner than they would have anyhow – but agree with the others that your view is way too cynical. by the way, DX80 FCS date was June 2014 – so just 6 years old – and most of the ones in the offices were put out in 2015 & 2016 – so the age of the actual units they're donating probably averages around 4 to 5 years old.
It doesn't matter what the motivation is. These are great tools for medical workers who wouldn't have them otherwise. Don't be so cynical.
Former employee and now I work for a large healthcare provider and we are asking for as many of them as we can. With some doctors staying home it allows us to video conf. with staff either at home or at other clinics and let a specialist see a patient in another clinic. Not everything Cisco does is horrible.
Sorry to differ - these donations do make a real difference. Yes, there is a write off and use, lots of it is used equipment. But please don't make light of the real need and gesture. Cisco has it faults, trust me, we all know. But with this - its the right thing to do and I commend them for it. In times like this, lets please find something else to criticize.
Not sure of the real value unless some of those made it into the hands of patients for telemedicine visits. What is the use case for these in existing hospitals that don't already have dedicated video? They are not easy to provision, either, so don't know how a home user would utilize a DX-80
Seems to me a tool like Microsoft Teams or WebEx fills the gap, using existing laptop cameras for video.
Maybe they just wanted to forget Rowan's legacy?
Likely ", tax writeoff and free publicity for old products they were going to toss anyway". Many, many tech companies are doing the same thing. Then they tell their employees how great of a thing they're doing and encourage everyone to go brag about it on Linkedin. It's all over and so transparent as to what it is.