There has been major market traction this past year in the deployment of cloud services, but the discussion still too often focuses on cloud in the singular. Our experience has shown that companies are not typically adopting a single approach to cloud, but rather are embracing a rich set of approaches that provides them with flexibility and control. While many are building  private clouds; others are building public clouds, many differentiated on industry specific characteristics. Increasingly, we see organizations using a mix of these options, consuming services from multiple cloud providers as well as building their own private cloud capacity.   But, all expect a secure and assured cloud experience.  Regular readers of this blog will recognize this as what we at Cisco we refer to as a world of many clouds. IT leaders must be prepared to build or acquire a portfolio of business application services in the world of many clouds. Read More »

Tags: cloud, Service Provider, UCS

Once the exclusive domain of senior executives, mobile devices are now indispensable to most employees for conducting both their business and personal lives. The insatiable demand for smartphones, tablets, and other connected devices is generating staggering amounts of mobile data. In parallel, the use of Wi-Fi for Internet access is exploding as more mobile devices are Wi-Fi enabled, the number of public hotspots expands, and user acceptance grows. Once shunned by corporate IT departments, Wi-Fi increasingly has made its way into most businesses.

Business users are the most valuable customer segment for mobile operators. Changes in mobile behavior and usage, particularly with regard to Wi-Fi, could have a significant impact on service providers’ (SPs) bottom line. However, there is little research on how mobile business users are actually using Wi-Fi, how they want to employ it in the future, and, more specifically, what is driving them to connect their devices to the Internet using Wi-Fi.

To learn more, Read More »

Tags: business users, Cisco, devices, Hotspot, IBSG, mobile, monetization, research, Service Provider, Tablets, wi-fi

In this business, “monetization” is often a nice way to say “profits”.   And profits usually come at someone else’s expense.

But what if I told you you could be profitable giving away your product?  Further, what if I told you you could be profitable, and your customer would also make money in the deal?

Too good to be true?  Not at all.  Telefonica’s O2 UK has found a way to give away mobile broadband service and make money doing it.

When O2 Read More »

Tags: mobile internet, mobility, O2, Service Provider, wi-fi

By Uwe Lambrette, Director, IBSG Service Provider

How exactly is the enterprise migration to the clouds progressing?

In 2010, the Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG) sought answers in a wide-ranging survey. At the time, the path to cloud was just beginning for many enterprises. Today, with cloud evolution accelerating into an increasingly essential process, we decided to capture the current state of cloud migration.

To gain these insights and to better understand this “enterprise journey to the clouds,” we interviewed CIOs, IT general managers, and cloud initiative directors at 45 organizations around the world, many of them Global 50 companies. Our in-depth interviews focused on five industry verticals: government, manufacturing, financial services, professional services, and retail.

In short, a majority of executives are Read More »

Tags: Cisco, cloud, Cloud Adoption, cloud transformation, Enterprise, FastFacts, IBSG, migration to cloud, Service Provider, virtualization

Following the ITU hosted CTO meeting held in Dubai on November 18 2012, where I represented our CTO Padmasree Warrior, I had the pleasure to present at the ITU-T Global Standards Symposium [GSS] in Dubai on November 19 2012.

This panel was of particular interest to us because Cisco observed a number of industries brought together on the same stage.  Energy, healthcare, and transportation are important to how we live and work, and Cisco engages in each of these sectors.

While this panel demonstrated the huge technological strides each sector is taking, I noted that these advances did not occur overnight.  Each of these sectors has evolved its approach with a lot of effort, over a long period of time. Read More »

Tags: Energy, healthcare, ITU, Service Provider, Transportation