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Honor and pride are two emotions that come to mind with the announcement of Cisco’s Leadership of the Year award from the Wi-Fi Awards. The Wi-Fi Awards are based on community vote, by Wi-Fi professionals.  So, thank you, Wi-Fi community! Cisco belongs to a very competitive industry with a number of exceptional vendors whose products and solutions keep us on our toes and innovating to stay one step ahead. Being chosen for the Leadership of the Year award is a huge honor and a testament to our vision and execution in the Wi-Fi arena.

OpenRoaming for the Masses

One of the things we highlighted in our initial application for Company Leadership, is OpenRoaming. The OpenRoaming initiative enables users to automatically and seamlessly connect to participating Wi-Fi networks, including Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax).  This is achieved through our partnership with the Wireless Broadband Alliance and a collective of industry partners and collaborators, whose goal is to provide a better bridge between public, guest, and enterprise Wi-Fi as well as cellular networks.

Thought Leadership

As an industry leader, Cisco takes pride, not only in how we design products but also in how we engage the community as a whole. Through our continued partnerships with a broad number of communities, from standards working groups such as IEEE, the Wireless Broadband Alliance, the Wi-Fi Alliance, and to engagement with a broad number of technology partners that help drive our device ecosystem, we appreciate our role in the community.

In addition, we partner with many of our customers to get feedback through a robust and comprehensive beta program to ensure our products and solutions are the very best they can be. We also have a number of customer and partner groups we work with to solicit feedback and advice from, including the Cisco Connection Program (CCP) and of course, the Cisco Champions, which is comprised of thought leaders from around the world.

Industry Leadership

Cisco is continuing to lead the Wi-Fi industry with a number of new products and initiatives. This includes the latest generation Wi-Fi 6 ready Catalyst access points, Catalyst 9800 series of wireless controllers and cloud-based Embedded Wireless Controller (EWC), as well as locations-based analytics from Cisco DNA Spaces, and Cisco DNA Center assurance to predict, locate, and resolve potential issues before they become an issue. All these products run on the IOS XE OS and work together to create some of the best networks on the planet. It’s because of its broad portfolio and large install-base that Cisco is in a prime position to lead and help drive the direction of the industry.

Thank you again to the Wi-Fi Awards team for kicking off this great program and to the broader community who voted. We are honored by this award and will continue to strive for great innovations that lead the industry.

 



Authors

Prashanth Shenoy

Vice President of Marketing

Enterprise Networking and Mobility