By Jason Kohn, Contributing Columnist

My last post described some of the cloud-based home healthcare services that broadband service providers are beginning to offer. Central to this idea is third-party partnerships: allowing outside healthcare providers into the traditional “walled garden” of telecom services. It’s easy to see how this model could be extended beyond healthcare.

One can imagine all sorts of value-added cloud applications that third parties could deliver over wireline networks. Indeed, one can envision a future in which service providers follow in the footsteps of Apple’s App Store and the Google Android Marketplace, where subscribers can choose from among thousands of third-party cloud apps that take advantage of their home broadband connections, gateways, and TV set-top boxes (STBs).

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Tags: App, cloud services, ecosystem, online video, open innovation, Service Provider

With more than 10 billion Apple App Store downloads as of early 2011, there is literally an app for just about everything you can imagine—from carbon footprint calculators to addicting games like Angry Birds to apps that remember where you parked your car.

But did you know that there are a number of apps available to help you do more while you’re on the road, get partner news, test Internet speed, and even reboot a server from 30,000 feet? And in our newest app, the Cisco Small Business Solution Builder for the iPad, we’ll arm you with an arsenal of sales tools.

A free download, the Cisco Small Business Solution Builder app is now available to help grow your businesses. By answering a series of questions on the app, you’ll be provided with Cisco solutions and products to solve your customer’s business needs.

Here are some highlights of what partners can use the app to do: Read More »

Tags: Android, App, Cisco, iPad, iphone, itunes, partners, Sales Tool, small business

Cisco Live: Catalyst 6500 and Sup2T: Engaging  attendees with Mobile Devices

With the launch of the Sup2T supervisor, and associated line cards (69xx), for the Catalyst 6500 Family Switches, Cisco embarked on an innovative strategy to help attendees learn about the features of the Catalyst 6500 family of switches, by providing a simple “Trivia Game” that attendees could play by downloading a Catalyst 6500 Mobile app, directly to their mobile devices. 

Over 780 attendees completed the trivia game on iPhones and iPads, and each day at Cisco Live, three “winners” were randomly picked from all the attendees who had answered the most trivia questions correctly.

The mobile app, available at the iTunes app store, was a huge success, especially with its contextual set of features and content, centered  around the Catalyst 6500 family of switches.

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Tags: App, Apple, Catalyst 6500, Cisco, iPad, iphone, itunes, mobility, switching

Mobile devices have changed the way we manage our lives—in fact, just the other day I used apps on my smartphone to pull up recipes and locate a nearby grocery store. (Now only if there were an app that could enable a smartphone to cook dinner.)

Did you know that there’s an app that can help you manage your Unified Computing System (UCS), too? UCSand, which is available for Android phones and can be found in the Android Market, enables you to monitor and control your UCS. Sounds pretty cool, don’t you think?

It definitely can be a useful tool, according to Colby Cousens, Systems Administrator for the City of Melrose, Massachusetts.

The city has a secure, multi-tenant FlexPod architecture in their data center. This solution provides the City of Melrose with the ability to offer secure network, storage, and compute resources to their partner communities.

“One of my own shortcomings regarding UCS is that I don’t get into the manager as often as I should to check events and warnings on the system,” Colby said. “The UCSand app highlights the value of Cisco’s XML-API in allowing a program to pull targeted data out of the UCS Manager without requiring an individual to navigate through extra configurations or information at the time.”

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Tags: Android, App, blade, Cisco, customer, examworks, FlexPod, melrose, partner, server, smartphone, UCS, UCSand

If you’re like the nearly 30% of mobile workers who check their smartphones every six-to-12 minutes during downtime – for those doing the math, that’s nearly 80 times a day provided that you’re not checking during work hours or in your sleep—you want easy ways to help you keep up with the latest news and info.

Now there’s a way to keep track of the latest Cisco partner news from your phone: the new Cisco Partners app. It’s available to all iPhone and Android mobile devices users for free!

The Cisco Partners app gives you access to late-breaking Cisco partner news, how-to articles, tips, program updates, the most current blog posts, and our video library – all at your fingertips. Plus, you can share with friends and colleagues using social media.

Ready for a quick tour of the new Cisco Partners app? Read More »

Tags: Android, App, blogs, Cisco, iphone, news, news feed, partners, video library, videos