Hollywood’s once high-tech future fantasies are not far off. Much of the technology depicted in films like 2001: A Space Odyssey is now reality, and smart houses like Eureka’s S.A.R.A.H. might be sooner than we think. But what will we see this year? Here are my top ten best guesses:
1. Old technology being used in a new way
This year will be about going back and using technology we already have in new ways. For instance, the new Ford Escape is reducing wind noise with pre-WWII technology. Many items that showed up at CES like the Nest, used old technology (thermostat) and applied new technology (internet connectivity and new interface) to create a gadget that has flown off the shelves.
2. Internet-capable features dominating the television market
With the popularity of devices like Roku and Apple TV, this will put more pressure on innovation in the world of television manufacturers. The next natural step will be for simplifying the connectivity for smarter and easier connected entertainment.
3. Near instantaneous media streaming
Current “4G” is considerably faster than 3G and is making headway towards the low-bandwidth, high-information capability of ITU’s official 4G standards.
4. Second Screen Experiences- a household term
With our attachment to mobile devices and The Sundance Film Festival’s introduction of “The New Frontier Story Lab” last year, it is likely we will see more films made for the second screen experience.
Earlier this week on February 5, 2012, 50 high school students from 10 high schools in Japan and Korea participated in the final round of the Travel and Tourism Business Program (TTBiz) Competition via Cisco TelePresence.
TTBiz is an educational program offered by Junior Achievement, an international non-governmental organisation (NGO), and Accenture that provides high school students around the world with the opportunity to learn and demonstrate global business and leadership skills in the travel and tourism industry.
The competition involved Korean and Japanese high school students teaming up to research, discuss and create travel proposals on “how to increase the number of Korean travelers to Japan.” This topic, which focused on promoting the Japanese tourism industry by attracting more Korean visitors to Japan, is aimed at helping tourism in Japan which has been greatly impacted by last year’s devastating earthquake and tsunami. Representatives of the Japan National Tourism Organization participated in the program as judges.
To provide an engaging environment for real-time dialogue and information sharing in the final competition, as the technology sponsor of TTBiz, Cisco provided its TelePresence and WebEx solutions to the high school students.
Last year’s America Invents Act made major changes to our patent system, largely designed to improve Patent Office operations, reduce the backlog of applications, and the quality of patents. A properly functioning Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) is vital both to speedy review of patents applied for by companies like Cisco, to weeding out applications that shouldn’t result in patents, and reviewing issued patents to make sure they’re not defective. Yesterday, the PTO set out a framework to help determine fees for using the services of the PTO going forward. While there was a lot of disagreement among various industry groups over various provisions of the patent reform legislation, most agreed on one thing at least: the fees paid by users of the PTO should cover the cost of the services the PTO provides, and the fees, once paid, should actually be available to the PTO to provide those services and not diverted to other purposes.
The PTO’s proposal yesterday fulfills the goals of the America Invents Act. Most important, that proposal is neutral, providing special advantages or imposing special burdens neither on large applicants like Cisco (we apply for over 700 patents per year) nor on smaller applicants who may have very few applications. It makes clear that the higher costs of initial review of patent applications should be reflected in the fees paid, to avoid cross-subsidization among different services, and that applicants should have a choice as to the type of processing desired. The presentation of alternative approaches should lead to a healthy discussion to help the PTO choose the best approach. Either of the approaches is a big step forward from where we were before the AIA. The bottom line is that there’s no free lunch, and no free patent process either. We hope users of the patent office large and small will work together to get a fair and usable result that will lead to the benefits the new law was designed to bring about.
The projected growth of Internet video is significant. Today, Internet video accounts for more than 50 percent of consumer Internet traffic. The explosion of video traffic across many devices, and the need to access content from anywhere at any time is driving the need for cloud-based networks and the popular applications and content they support.
Cloud-based networks can offer consumers greater mobility, wider accessibility and the robust performance needed for high quality video experiences. With an Internet connection, cloud computing makes it possible to experience video on many different devices, from virtually anywhere, anytime.
The strength and power of cloud computing makes the video transition to cloud-enabled networks a better option for not only Service Providers but consumers as well. Consumers can expect increased performance, higher capacity, better access and a seamless experience when their services are based in the cloud.
Cloud’s limitless accessibility for end users coupled with the advantages of cloud data centers for network operators and enterprises offer the technology and solutions to transform and accelerate Internet video delivery and consumption in the near future.
I recently participated in a session at the 6th annual Global Competitiveness Forum, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The overall theme of the event focused on the positive impact of competition on economic and social development around the world. More specifically, I spoke on the emergence of the aerotropolis and the opportunities it presents for the development of cities. As a concept developed by John D. Kasarda and Greg Lindsay in their book “Aerotropolis: The Way We’ll Live Next“, an aerotropolis is an urban form whose layout, infrastructure, and economy is centered on an airport, offering its businesses speedy connectivity to suppliers, customers, and enterprise partners worldwide.
Globalization lies at the root of the aerotropolis. Beginning hundreds of years ago, globalization started with the basic premise of transporting physical goods between nations. As we moved into the 1980s, we saw the emergence of global manufacturing. The 1990s then ushered in the growth of global R&D. Over the last five years or so, we have transitioned into what I call the globalization of the corporate brain. We are beginning to think and act globally about our innovation, growth and talent in the corporate space – it’s all about co-creation and talent. As a global community, we have evolved from the pure transportation of physical goods to the transportation of goods and intellect.
Let’s talk a little about why the aerotropolis has gained momentum. Historically, cities have built their airports on the periphery of their borders. The land area, noise and other issues that come with airports have largely been the reasons behind this. However, times have changed, and in today’s (still) goods-based economy, planners are seeing that this layout is not conducive to developing the local economy.
As we all know, the world is changing at networked speeds and organizations need an IT partner that can help lead them through these challenges. Cisco is that partner.
To help further communicate this, we recently launched our new brand and advertising campaign. This campaign is to showcase that our true value is in what we make possible for customers with our innovative networking technology. Our company strategy starts and ends with customer success. As such, the ongoing campaign will highlight Cisco customers and the ways that Cisco’s intelligent network empowers their business with new, more effective ways to connect, exchange ideas and innovate.
IMHO, Cisco is uniquely positioned to help our customers solve their most important business challenges. Our strengths are many: beginning with engineering depth and expertise, an ecosystem of partners, a passion for networking, and culminating in our vast experience at building and delivering Intelligent Networks that unleash business potential. It’s our rich portfolio transformational business solutions that help CEOs and CIO/CTOs achieve greater innovation and momentum.
This week in No Jitter, Cisco Collaboration Vice President Murali Sitaram is featured in an extensive Q&A with editor Dave Michels. Entitled, “Cisco’s Quadragenarian,” Sitaram is working to take Cisco, a company with a strong networking core, and move it towards collaboration software that is both social and cloud-based.
Murali discusses his role, Cisco’s perspective on social business software, the post PC-era, collaboration in general, people-centric collaboration, email and more. In part he says:
“In today’s post-PC era, employees no longer are tied to their desk or required to sit in a conference room to do their jobs…Social collaboration adds a new layer to the communication experience, allowing companies to innovate, grow, expand into new markets and increase productivity.
Over the last two or three decades we have been living in the era of the “document” or…email…if you think about it, people don’t really collaborate or work in that way…We have conversations, we share in communities…previous generation of tools have outlived their utility and we must rethink how people work.”
Today, we made a significant announcement that transcends data center, campus and service provider and Cloud-based deployments, geared towards helping our customers embrace the winds of change that are buffeting the IT landscape. This announcement is precipitated by a number of mega-trends that were buzzwords even a couple of years ago but have become looming realities in the IT landscape. Think video, virtualization, 10G, Bring your own device (BYOD) and not to forget – the journey to cloud.
Layer in ongoing careabouts like security and Energy Efficiency – and boy, do we have the perfect storm brewing.
The three “Cs”:
For many customers, it is no longer sufficient to take a “band-aid approach”. A faster switch here or a new wireless LAN access point there just doesn’t cut it. They have to step back and evaluate their environment holistically, and minimize the chokepoints proactively. This is causing them to evaluate the three “Cs” of capacity, complexity and cost, while ensuring that they’re in a position to deliver the end-to-end IT experience.
In December, Cisco introduced Cisco CloudVerse, a framework and set of solutions that combines the foundational elements needed to enable organizations to build, manage, and connect public, private and hybrid clouds. Cisco CloudVerse combines these key cloud elements – Unified Data Center, Cloud Intelligent Network, and Cloud Applications and Services – enabling businesses to realize all of the benefits of clouds: improved agility, better economics, enhanced security, and a dynamic, assured experience.
As a leading technology company, Cisco pushes the envelope in our traditional industries with innovative business transformations, as we did by entering the server market in 2009 with our Unified Computing System paired with our Nexus data center switching family. Competition in the marketplace is good for customers as competition accelerates innovation, creates new opportunities as old problems are attacked from new angles, and creates incentives for the various players in the industry to work together–and separately–toward better solutions.
But achieving the promise of this progress and innovation comes with a necessary step that I feel is often overlooked, rushed, or ignored: Testing. At Cisco, we perform intense testing as we develop our solutions whether the testing is in-house, with partners and customers, or via third-parties.
Over 70 percent of leading cloud providers are using Cisco CloudVerse on their journey to the cloud, and–in the latest example of our commitment to testing–third-party testing firm EANTC has validated those cloud providers’ commitment by affirming “Cisco has all the components one would need to offer cloud services”. For coverage, Light Reading has published the first report of the Cloud Mega Test results done by EANTC.
But let’s talk more about what was behind the test.
This week we are celebrating a milestone by announcing that 10,000 customers worldwide have deployed our new Unified Computing System. In just over two years UCS has captured the attention of data center managers and CIOs alike, despite skepticism from industry observers that a new computing technology could take hold in this highly competitive market.
According to a recent Servers and Virtualization Study by TheInfoPro,™ Cisco took the lead among server vendors in vision, technical innovation, product performance, and sales force.
Many have asked “how did UCS become successful so rapidly?” The answer lies with our customers: they selected UCS because the architecture drove a transformation of their data centers, while delivering advantages for their business and lowering IT costs. And we see a growing number of these customers, including half the fortune 500 companies, using UCS as the foundational building block to move towards private and hybrid clouds.
Bottom Line
We hear from our customers on a daily basis that UCS is transforming their IT practice and significantly contributing to their business. Thanks to all our UCS customers– may you continue to grow your businesses in 2012!
Here’s a small sampling of the passionate testimonies we receive:
Steven Senecal, manager of Global Server Engineering for Travelport
“Although we were successfully meeting customer needs, the infrastructure needed to be much more scalable and resilient to handle the demand expected to occur in the next few years. For example, the Cisco Unified Computing System service profiles are a benefit to data center IT managers, allowing us to create and store a unique identity for every blade. Our team can query this information for asset management and it enables us to truly rip and replace a blade in minutes if necessary.” Travelport, a global leader in transaction processing for the travel industry supporting transaction services in 160 countries and over 60,000 travel agencies, deployed UCS to increase business agility, scalability and efficiency for its primary data center.
Dan Hein, director, Global Shared Services, Columbia Sportswear
“The integration of compute, network, and storage into a single stack is transforming the way we, as IT professionals, view these environments.” We anticipate a significant reduction in the overhead required to manage the Vblock platform environment, because we’ve taken three separate disciplines and combined them into one. Because Vblock is preconfigured and pretested by VCE, we can move forward with our SAP deployment quickly and with confidence that the infrastructure will deliver the robust performance and availability we need out of the gate.” Columbia Sportswear, a global leader in the manufacture and wholesaling of sports apparel and outdoor clothing with offices in 45 countries worldwide, selected VCE Vblock Infrastructure Platforms to support a new deployment of SAP to run its most critical business applications, including financial, product development, manufacturing, and shipping.
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Last week, @CiscoSystems reached 100,000 followers. We wanted to take this opportunity to spotlight the profile of an @CiscoSystems follower and our top 10 most popular tweets of 2011. If you fit this profile and like what we tweet about, please follow us. If you’re already following us and know a friend who fits this profile, send an @reply to @CiscoSystems with your friend’s Twitter handle and we’ll send you Cisco schwag from “The Network“! Be sure to also include the hashtag #followcisco. While supplies last. More details at the end of this post.
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Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2012 is now less than two months away and the mobile industry is shifting into high gear! From now until the booths come down and the Fira Barcelona goes silent, it’s full speed ahead.
No one is more excited about Cisco’s mobility story—and our presence at MWC 2012—than Chairman and CEO John Chambers. As he often says, “mobility is the killer app” and the biggest of all the Read More »
This week I am delighted to once again be in the city that never sleeps: New York. In addition to enjoying the shopping and dining of New York, I am excited to be attending this year’s 101st National Retail Federation Convention & Expo (NRF). With over 22,000 retail professionals from 82 countries attending to discuss the industry’s most critical topics, this year’s NRF promises to be full of innovations that will seamlessly integrate technology into everyday shopping.
As a woman who loves fashion, I am particularly excited by the NRF demonstration of Cisco’s StyleMe, a virtual fashion mirror that would allow me to explore the store’s inventory database to find what I want, virtually try it on, and accessorize. While creating my outfit I can also capture images to send for approval by my personal fashionistas -- my daughters.
Cisco recently sat down with Richard Creegan of Itron, Gary Murphy of BC Hydro and Dave Geier of SDG&E to discuss the current state of the smart grid transition and to get their perspectives on the new set of offerings in Cisco’s Connected Grid portfoli0. Through a host of new solutions, services and partnerships for utilities, Cisco aims to provide a common communications and network platform to help utilities move forward with grid modernization efforts.
We began with Itron, which joined with Cisco in 2011 in an effort to combine expertise and offer a fully-compliant IPv6 Field Area Network (FAN) solution to the industry.
Cisco: The alliance between Cisco and Itron has produced its first solution for the utility industry. Can you talk a little about why you felt this union made sense?
Itron: Both Cisco and Itron have their own unique expertise. When it comes to Cisco, information technology is core to what they do and it elevates the value of what we offer to customers. Combined with Itron’s proven expertise in delivering operational technologies that utilities use to run their businesses, this partnership established a vision to create a smart grid platform that will help move both companies forward.
Next we turned to BC Hydro and SDG&E, two utility companies who are both utilizing Cisco’s new FAN solution.
In January 2011, Internet companies around the globe announced they would come together to perform the largest test of IPv6 deployment the world had ever seen. Cisco was among the first to proudly announce its official participation in World IPv6 Day, and after several months of preparation and an intense 24 hours in June, it was clear that we had witnessed a watershed moment in the move towards global deployment of IPv6.
So what next after this? As reports came in and logs were analyzed over the days and weeks after, it became increasingly clear that we didn’t need just another global test. Instead, we needed to enable IPv6 once and for all. So, on June 6, 2012, the industry will again unite but not just for single day. This time, we turn it on and leave it on. We’re calling this World IPv6 Launch, and it is now the largest commitment to full-scale production IPv6 deployment the world has ever seen.
For websites, the commitment is similar to last year in that reachability via IPv6 will be advertised within the global Domain Name System (DNS). This time, however, the DNS entry will remain indefinitely rather than disappear after a single day. In addition to websites, the Internet Society has setup requirements for participation by residential Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and makers of home networking equipment. The rationale for expanding to these two specific areas is that while IPv6 has been available in some models of consumer-grade networking equipment and from some ISPs for a number of years, it was very rarely enabled by default and as such very rarely in use despite the majority of internet devices being capable of IPv6.
In order to tackle these remaining barriers to deployment, new Internet subscriptions and consumer-grade home routers will begin to appear with IPv6 enabled by default as the normal course of doing business. Specifically, participating home networking equipment makers are committing to include IPv6 enabled by default through a wide range of their products (both “low end” and “high end” home routers) by June 6. For ISPs, websites will be measuring what percentage of users have IPv6 enabled, with a target of no less than 1% before the World IPv6 Launch deadline. The 1% is a “running start”, such that after June 6 we’ll be on a path of sustained growth in IPv6 deployment going forward.
Cisco is again pleased to announce its full participation and support, both by enabling IPv6 on www.cisco.com indefinitely and by enabling IPv6 by default in our new line of E-series home routers. In addition, we will be working with our customers, Cisco Services and development teams to ensure that as many companies as possible can participate and those that do are successful.
June 6, 2012. This is the year we Launch a new Internet Protocol.
