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June 30, 2006
Snagging PRSA Awards
Kudos at the City Club of San Francisco
As far as award dinners go, the Public Relations Society of America’s 2006 Northern California event more than held its own. Convened at the City Club of San Francisco, the Silver & Bronze Anvil Awards competition included scores of entrants from pr firms and corporations from around the region.
And guess what? Cisco scored twice.
A Silver Anvil Award for an Integrated Communications Program for business to business went to the company for “Cisco Systems: Celebrating 20 Years of Innovation.” Above, Abby Smith (left), and Heather Goodwin, both of Cisco Corporate Communications, accepted the award on behalf of the multiple groups that worked on the project.
Cisco also won a Merit Award, for the Cisco IPICS Press Launch. Pamela Rupert and Robert Barlow, below, also of Corporate Communications, show off the award for the launch which was spearheaded by colleague Linda Horiuchi.
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June 23, 2006
Dream Purchases
Cisco Networkers' buying preferences vary
If given a checkbook to buy their dream technology, network professionals have a long wish list. In a survey of more than 1,100 attendees of the Cisco Networkers 2006 user conference, dream buying preferences varied wildly.
Among the survey’s questions, respondents were asked: “If you were handed your organization’s IT check book, what are the dream technology/applications that you would purchase?”
Some wanted mainstays. “I would purchase Catalyst 6500 for a campus network,” said one conference goer.
“Deploying CRS1 in our core,” another answered as his dream buy.
Many others said would seek out IP-based technologies.
“The network and telecom infrastructure is currently undergoing a major facelift, but I would like to see internal multimedia provisions for training and video conferencing,” said one conference attendee.
Another listed his picks as follows: “Given a choice and freedom, WiMax, WiFi, mesh technology and almost anything-over-IP shall be my priorities as I believe that these will be the prime movers in wireless technologies for the times to come and they will have tremendous business impact.”
One respondent listed technologies to fit his geographically dispersed organization: “Multipoint video conferencing; MeetingPlace Enterprise, and wireless LAN controllers and access points throughout our company’s 30 locations,” the respondent said.
Others shared issues that very often concern network administrators. “If we had the money, we would replace all network equipment older than 5 years,” one respondent said.
Another conference goer dared to dream big and imagined great results from new technologies. “I would invest more in the tools to connect the minds of science and technology to further build the collaboration fields offerings to meet their requirements for distance learning, experiment controls, knowledge storage and retrieval,” the attendee said.
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June 21, 2006
Network Relations
Survey Shows Reach of Internet
LAS VEGAS, Nev. - The network’s pervasiveness is well known. But the extent of its integration into life experiences is made clear in a survey taken of more than 1,100 attendees of the Cisco Networkers 2006 user conference.
One survey question asked, “What is your most interesting or pleasantly surprising life experience that was enabled by the network or being online?”
The results were astounding. No less than 13 people said they met their wives online.
“Sustaining a long-distance relationship with a girlfriend who is now my wife,” one respondent said of his most interesting experience enabled by the network. Who would argue?
The network has become a conduit for all sorts of key personal and professional relations.
One man said his most interesting life experience was “when my wife (who was adopted at birth) found her biological mother. Without the Internet, this wouldn't have happened.”
“Found lost family member after 30 years,” said one respondent.
“Sending a video feed to a U.S. Marine in Iraq during the birth of his son,” said another.
The network easily enhances family communications over distances.
One respondent said he has enjoyed, “Remote communications with my young children while on the road - via email, IM, and now VoIP.”
The network has also enhanced a wide variety of communications experiences.
“I watched the Space Shuttle launch via an IP video solution that we implemented at Kennedy Space Flight Center, from a remote conference in Nashville, Tenn.,” said one respondent. “It was just an experience just to get to do something that cool, and see the wow on the faces of the people who realized they were not watching TV, but were watching TV over the internet.”
Another said he enjoyed, “Interactive LiveDive experience with underwater divers and a remotely-operated vehicle under the Monterey Bay.”
Man’s best friend has also taken its place in the Internet age. “I found my dog on an rescue agency's Web site,” one respondent said.
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June 20, 2006
Chambers' Network Vision
Networkers Demo Shows the Future
Tom Sanders, the "Silicon Valley Sleuth" for VNUnet.com, today published on his blog the Networkers 2006 keynote demonstration by Cisco Systems' President and CEO John Chambers on his vision of unified networks.
Check it out here.
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Networkers List Next Buzzwords
Top 15 new terms are unveiled
LAS VEGAS, Nevada - As the network continues its rapid evolution, so does the language that describes it. A survey of more than 1,100 attendees at the Cisco Networkers 2006 conference included one question that asked respondents to provide the industry's next buzzword. The responses included a wealth of new terms offered as additions to the network vocabulary.
The submittals illuminated technical ideas, such as VoFI for Voice over WiFi. Others described generalized experiences. Among the best in that category was Fiberchild, for someone born after 2005 that has always had access to integrated voice, data, and video.
Here are the top 15 responses. Some may make their way into future dictionaries. Others won't, but they sure are amusing.
1. Trackberry: Being able to track your kids/people with cell phone technology. "I know where my kids are thanks to their trackberry."
2. Layer 8: “The political stuff beyond the control of the OSI model.”
3. Webvana: The ultimate web browsing experience. “I was in webvana for an hour last night!”
4. Whack-A-Mole: White hat hackers that set up systems to detect, prevent, document and shut down black hat hackers.
5. VoFi: Voice over WiFi. As more and more cell phone manufacturers add WiFi capabilities to common cellular phones, the ability of a carrier to provide cell-quality coverage in a WiFi environment, with additional enhancements for data/content downloads, will become a huge demand.
6. NAP: Network Application Problem.
7. NeverFailNet: No explanation necessary.
8. NICCUP: When a NIC or other network device hiccups. "The manager was most insistent on an explanation for the last NICCUP.
9. Webdependancy: Reliance on the Internet to effectively function.
10. Marketecture: The design of a solution driven by marketing jargon and hype with no rational thought to operationalizing, pure pandering to customer demand. "The sales guys knew what we wanted, but when pressed for the solution, all he had was slideware and Marketecture.”
11. Elephantitis: General term describing the state of the network hardware or software; a very large entity that has grown huge due to add-on fixes and software fixes and moves very slowly. A hardware platform that is very old, covered with dust/dirt, can't be moved due to great weight, has a very good memory for past events so you don't want to touch it!
12. Green Noise: Enthusiasm generated when working together as a team.
13. GigaNet: Ubiquitous high speed access everywhere.
14. Fiberchild: A child born after 2005 that has always had access to integrated voice, data, and video. “Brody is a fiberchild.”
15: WWW: World Without Walls.
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June 19, 2006
More on Metreos and Audium
IDC Weighs In
Abner Germanow, IDC's director of networks services, responded to a recent News@Cisco Notes blog that mentioned his favorable opinion of Cisco's planned acquisition of software companies Metreos and Audium, in which the companies' application creation and integration environments offer the potential to help further the integration of voice, video and data through Cisco's Unified Communications technology.
He pointed to his full report, co-authored with IDC Analyst Nora Freedman, on the planned purchase, "Cisco Acquires Audium and Metreos to Provide More Robust Voice Application Development Platforms."
"Audium provides a VoiceXML (VXML) development platform that allows users to move proprietary interactive voice response (IVR) development and deployment environments to open standards environments," the IDC abstract of the report said. "Metreos provides an integrated development environment (IDE) that is deployed between the enterprise telephony infrastructure and the applications customers can build, deploy, and manage on the Metreos platform."
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June 13, 2006
Ideas Matter
Acquisitions Aimed at Unified Communications
Whether companies are big or small, it’s their ideas that matter.
Cisco certainly believes this maxim, and has announced the planned purchase of Metreos and Audium, two tiny software companies that could play an important role in the development of Cisco’s Unified Communications System.
The additions represent a step toward enabling enterprises to further adopt and integrate data, voice, and video technology, says IDG News Service's Stephen Lawson.
Metreos and Audium offer application creation and integration environments that should enable in-house enterprise application developers use an interface to integrate their applications with the Unified Communications System.
The middleware from these companies works with widely-used business applications from companies such as SAP, which will facilitate integration, says Lawson, citing IDC analyst Abner Germanow.
The developers can do the integration work, which would suit both Cisco an enterprises which would like to move at their own pace.
"They (enterprises) need to be able to try an application with a fairly low investment before they can figure out if it's right for them," Germanow said.
Neither company has more than 30 employees but they provide key software, said Laurent Philonenko, vice president and general manager of Cisco's Contact Center Business.
"They absolutely open the enterprise application world to unified communications," Philonenko said.
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June 05, 2006
Action at the Edge
Cisco moves ahead with Next-Generation Network
Cisco is making waves at the GlobalComm 2006, the Telecommunications Association’s trade show in Chicago, announcing a series of initiatives designed to push forward its IP Next-Generation Network vision. Here is a summary of the announcements. For a fuller picture, go to News@Cisco’s media kit.
The company made available a Cisco Intelligent Services Gateway (ISG) feature set on the Cisco 10000 and 7200 Series Routers, as well as the Cisco 7301 Router. The Cisco ISG simplifies the creation and improves the performance of advanced services delivered over Cisco IP NGNs. Cisco also enhanced the performance of the Cisco 10000 Series and Cisco 7200 Series Routers with new routing engines, the PRE-3 and NPE-G2, respectively, extending investment protection for these platforms.
"Getting beyond incrementalism and truly transforming infrastructures requires providers to have subscriber management, policy enforcement, policy management and service assurance capabilities that are application, access and traffic-demand agnostic," said Mark Seery, vice president for IP Service Infrastructure at Ovum-RHK. "The breadth of customers Cisco supports, and the architectural flexibility that requires, has resulted in the development of the Intelligent Services Gateway, an integral part of the Cisco Service Exchange Framework and a capability which sets a standard for other vendors to meet."
In the network convergence arena, Cisco unveiled enhancements to the Cisco 7600 Series routing portfolio to advance network intelligence, flexibility and return on investment for service providers and their Cisco IP NGNs. These innovations include a new integrated mesh Wireless Services Module (WiSM) for metropolitan Wi-Fi mesh aggregation to more efficiently deliver integrated fixed/mobile services, and multicast connection admission control (CAC) capability to manage bandwidth oversubscription for IPTV.
The innovations also include an integrated video/IPTV quality-monitoring module to help ensure high-quality video service delivery, and Ethernet operations, administration and maintenance (OA&M) capabilities for improved service assurance.
Scientific Atlanta, a Cisco company, is actively supporting telco video efforts with both RF and IP video solutions. Highlights include IPTV headends, hubs and networks, MPEG-4 part 10/H.264 advanced video coding technology, advanced IPTV set-tops for end-to-end IP video streaming and integrated home networking technologies.
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