Analyst Relations Insights Thoughts and Opinions on Industry Trends and Issues

Together We Lead—2009 Cisco Partner Summit

Together we Lead is the theme at this year’s Cisco Partner Summit held June 2-4 in Boston, MA (and in the virtual world too).  This event held just about something for everyone… well at least the almost 60,000 partners that Cisco has around the globe.  The event offered significant expansion of its Navigate to Accelerate initiate- a program that helps partners survive and even thrive during this economic storm— new offerings and certification programs to generate revenue in the emerging Unified Computing space and continued commitment of Cisco’s Small Business strategy with new solutions, service support expansions for end users and partners and several new partner programs.

Check out the following links for information on the event and all it offered including, highlights of news, feature stories, executive Q&A,  keynotes and much more…

Cisco Channels Blog

Cisco and Partners Team to Navigate Economic Storm (Q&A with WW Channels SVP Keith Goodwin)

Cisco Helps Channel Partners Navigate the Challenging Economy and Prepare for Future Growth (news release)

Cisco Delivers on Its Small Business Commitment (news release)

Cisco and Partners to Accelerate Data Center Virtualization (news release)

Posted by Laura Irwin at 12:41PM PST

Cisco Partner Summit Takes Off Today…

This week Cisco is holding its annual Partner Summit. Exciting news all week long… keep checking here for news updates and interesting info or check, http://newsroom.cisco.com. The Partner Summit Tweet handle is #CISCOPS09

Posted by Laura Irwin at 07:56AM PST

More 4G Momentum for Cisco!

Think world-class routing technology, optical platforms, service control engine capability, SAMI home agent, new mobile WiMAX devices, and more.  Then think Cisco and Clearwire.

Cisco and Clearwire announced today that Clearwire – provider of the CLEAR 4G™ mobile WiMAX service—has selected Cisco as its national IP NGN core infrastructure provider.  Additionally, Cisco plans to build new mobile WiMAX devices supporting the CLEAR 4G service for the consumer, SOHO and SMB markets.

Clearwire provides CLEAR 4G mobile WiMAX service in Baltimore and Portland, Ore., and plans to expand to more than 80 markets by the end of 2010 as part of the multiyear network build-out plan with Cisco that helps consumers and businesses enjoy a Connected Life at home, at work and on the move. 

Please see the video below of Clearwire President Barry West discussing the Cisco/Clearwire alliance.

Read More.

Posted by Carter Cromwell at 08:03AM PST

Cisco on the Edge

The ASR 9000, Cisco’s new flagship edge router, has been in global trials, and the feedback has been very positive.  Top-tier service providers such as Deutsche Telekom and Softbank have endorsed the new platform, while others—including Verizon Wireless—are actively deploying the ASR 9000 as the foundation of their edge networks. 
Following is a video in which Deutsche Telekom Senior Vice President Wolfgang Schmitz discusses the benefits of the ASR 9000.  Deutsche Telekom works with Cisco to offer high-bandwidth services on the ASR 9000.  The ASR 9000 will enable DT to deploy advanced services—such as video and IPTV—in less time, at lower cost and with less energy usage.

The ASR 9000 is an example of medianet technologies that are network and end point aware and designed to support growing surge of video and other rich media content. 
In addition, here is an earlier video in which Junichi Miyakawa—Executive Vice President, Director and CTO of SoftBank—discusses the ASR 9000.

Posted by Carter Cromwell at 01:23PM PST

Cisco Announces Intent to Acquire Tidal Software

Interesting news from Cisco’s Services team today as the company announced its intent to acquire privately held Tidal Software, Inc.Tidal Software is the creator of intelligent application management and automation solutions that will advance Cisco’s data center strategy by enhancing product and service delivery offerings. The acquisition will also create significant opportunities for Cisco and its partners through the delivery of partner-led services, leveraging Cisco’s application management capabilities.  Check out Cisco’s newsroom for the full story on Tidal Software

Posted by Laura Irwin at 02:13PM PST

Enabling the Connected Life

As the Visual Networking era continues to unfold, Cisco is committed to providing Service Providers with networks that are both media and end-point aware – a term we call Medianet.  The execution of this strategy was front and center this week at both the Cable Show/NCTA in Washington D.C. and at CTIA in Las Vegas, where Cisco displayed a number of examples of how we are helping our Service Provider customers/partners respond to consumer demand for a “Connected Life.”

A description of the announcements made this week, can be found here:

Posted by Charlie Guyer at 04:11AM PST

Emerging Markets on the Rise - Are You Ready?

The top ten ranked countries on the Network Readiness Index in this years’ World Economic Forum, The Global Information Technology Report 2008-2009 will not come as a surprise with Denmark assuming the number one position. It is however the dramatic year over year improvement of the emerging countries that point to the turning point that will shape the ICT industry in years to come.  China moved up 11 positions to take the lead over all the BRIC countries whilst the Middle East was the region that showed fastest growth out of all other regions.  The question that remains however is, where are the industry analysts?

Read More.

Posted by Sharon Robinson at 01:03AM PST

Cisco at VoiceCon 2009—Times Two

VoiceCon is one of the industries leading voice events where analysts, customers, partners, press and vendors gather to hear the latest news and information about Unified Communications and Collaboration. It is expected that Cisco and other key vendors have a presence at the show.

This year Cisco is trying something new.  No, we are not abandoning our onsite presence at VoiceCon.  Actually, Cisco’s is present at the show in two ways…onsite and virtually.  That’s right; this year Cisco has a virtual presence which allows those unable to be in Orlando in person to still join the show through the use of Web 2.0 technologies. 

The virtual experience will bring you a robust, interactive, intuitive, virtual experience that brings together Cisco experts, partners, customers, and prospects to learn more about and experience relevant Cisco messages, solutions, services, demonstrations and products.

We’re very excited to offer analysts, customers, partners, and press the opportunity to join us via Cisco Collaboration Virtual Events site.  To check it out in person click here.

If we don’t’ get a chance to see you at the show, join us virtually!
Ron

Posted by Ron Davis at 07:33AM PST

Cisco Flips for Pure Digital Technologies

Another big move for Cisco in the consumer market.  On March 19, Cisco announced our intent to acquire Pure Digital Technologies, the creator of Flip Video. 

Given that Pure Digital Technologies is a pioneer in developing consumer friendly video solutions, it kind of made sense to use the Flip to do a video posting on it.

I just bought a new Flip MinoHD and was hoping to get outside and maybe do a video from a more exciting location (like the beach or somewhere far away from the confines of my home office), but mother nature didn’t want to cooperate.  So much for the saying it’s always warm and sunny in San Diego.

Posted by Ben Culp at 10:21PM PST

Cisco Announces Navigate to Accelerate to Help Channel Partners

The economy seems to be on all of our minds.  Intellectually, we understand this is a cycle and that the economy will turn around. However, we are concerned about how to prepare until the economy turns around and to we make sure we are positioned to take advantage of the upswing when it occurs.  Cisco knows this current economic trend is top of mind for its Channel Partners who are facing new business dynamics and opportunities.  In an effort to help our partners position themselves for what lies ahead, we announced Navigate to Accelerate, a global program that outlines 4 key strategies to help weather the storm.  They include:
1.  Focus on Finances - Maintain financial discipline, manage cash flow and credit.
2.  Focus on the Customer Base - Leverage existing customer relationships to drive profitability and loyalty.
3.  Focus on Changing Customer Needs - Elevate strategic role by helping customers adapt to new consumption models and solutions that promote productivity and cost reduction.
4.  Focus on the Future - Make strategic investments in technology and partnerships that will help prepare for the upturn.

Navigate to Acclerate’s program is designed to help partners concentrate on strategies that are a must to their business. It provides tools, resources and incentives. To find out more information about Navigate to Accelerate, go to
http://www.cisco.com/go/navigate.com You can also track our Channel views and thinking by following, Keith Goodwin, SVP of Worldwide Channels, Twitter at http://https://twitter.com/keitheg

Posted by Rebecca Noriega at 06:53PM PST

The Business of Small Business-It Just Works

With small businesses being one of the more hopeful spots in the economy for a quicker recovery they are on everyone’s radar. Stimulus packages are being created, our new President talks about the importance of small businesses and Cisco too sees this segment as a key area where it can make a contribution and help small businesses just work.

Cisco’s been talking about its strategy and the $100 million global initiative it put in place to provide dedicated solutions, services and support, along with go to market programs specifically for small businesses to help address their business problems using technology.

With any solid strategy comes the delivery of the goods, and Cisco’s just announced a series of solutions that help small businesses with offerings around security, storage and unified communications.Couple that with a new support center and a small business on-line community for channel partners customers as well as some financial assistance and programs.

Nice package all in all and a value proposition that "it just works" along with it.

Check out News@Cisco to read and hear what Cisco executives are saying about small business and the opportunity that technology provides to let them stay focused on the business of small business. http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2009/prod_012609.html

Posted by Laura Irwin at 12:57PM PST

Cisco Acquires Richards-Zeta Building Intelligence

Cisco announced today the acquisition of privately-held Richards-Zeta Building Intelligence. Based in Santa Barbara, California, Richards-Zeta Building Intelligence is a leader in Intelligent Middleware technology for building systems.

If you’re not familiar with Richards-Zeta Building Intelligence, here is an example of what the technology can do…

In California, PG&E (Utility Provider) has created a program that alerts customers to days of high demand on the electric infrastructure.  PG&E’s customers are then able to take advantage of financial incentives if they can reduce their energy consumption on these days.  By using Richards Zeta’s middleware, customers can integrate building systems with these demand response messages to deliver an automated process that reduces energy consumption.

While this is terrific in the business world, there is also a huge benefit to California residents.  With technology like this to automate and manage a buildings energy consumption, it may help eliminate California’s rolling energy blackouts during peak summer months.  From what I hear, it can get pretty hot in many parts of California (Luckily, I live in San Diego County so wouldn’t know about that:-)).

Richards-Zeta Building Intelligence will become part of Cisco’s Emerging Technologies Group (ETG).  If you’re not familiar with our Emerging Technologies Group, it’s an internal group at Cisco that is focused on building businesses that we believe can grow to $1 billion + worth of revenue and take us into new adjacent markets.  Through a combination of internal R&D, partnerships, and acquisitions, ETG incubates new opportunities for Cisco.

To hear more about the acquisition, please check out this podcast with Phil Kirk, Business Development Manager in our Corporate Development group.
http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac78/podcasts.html

Posted by Ben Culp at 11:18AM PST

The CRS-1: Momentum, Momentum, Momentum

When Cisco announced the CRS-1 core router (http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps5763/index.html) in 2004, more than a few people predicted that the company would sell no more than 50.  Today, less than five years later, Cisco has shipped in excess of 3000.

That’s called exceeding expectations.

In a huge way. 

And it’s nothing new.

In fact, 100 had been shipped after the CRS-1 had been on the market for just one year.  The figure reached 900 by mid-2007, and it surpassed 3000 just 18 months after that - 60 times that original prediction . . . and still going.

Also, Cisco has shipped more than 150 multi-chassis units of the CRS-1 to address growing customer demands for network efficiencies. 

Why?  Well, Cisco’s prediction of exponential growth in IP traffic - as detailed in its Visual Networking Index - has been proven correct.  Traffic growth is being driven by increased network, service and application convergence to facilitate delivery of video services.  The CRS-1 supports this growth with its capacity and ability to provide network efficiencies and support network virtualization.

Don’t believe it?  You can ask some of the more than 300 customers that have purchased CRS-1s (http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps5763/products_press_coverage_list.html).

Posted by Carter Cromwell at 01:07PM PST

Cisco at CES

Over the last couple of years, Cisco has been aggressively sharing our vision and strategy for the consumer market.  Last week at CES was a significant milestone for us in the consumer market.  We made a variety of announcements that deliver on our vision/strategy of enabling people to live a connected life that is more personal, more social and more visual by utilizing the network as the platform for easily sharing experiences across devices, locations and applications.  Some of the major announcements from CES include:

The new Eos Software Platform that enables Media and Entertainment companies to create, manage and grow online communities around their content
http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2009/prod_010709b.html

A new Wireless Home Audio Product Family that makes it easy to play music from a variety of sources wirelessly throughout the home
http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2009/prod_010709g.html

A new Media Hub that makes it simple for consumers to store, access and interact with all their digital content
http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2009/prod_010709f.html

A new Cisco Device Connections Program that provides vendors license rights to use HNAP in their networked devices for easier set up, configuration and interoperability on a home network
http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2009/prod_010709e.html
 
Pretty big moves for Cisco that show we’re serious about the consumer market.

Posted by Ben Culp at 09:37PM PST

Value of C-Scape from an analyst

Hear form Blair Pleasant, President & Principal Analyst, COMMfusion on Cisco’s C-Scape event.

Posted by Ron Davis at 02:56PM PST