InformationWeek – Unified Communications > ‘Cisco will focus on Smart Connected Communities’

InformationWeek – Unified Communications > ‘Cisco will focus on Smart Connected Communities’
Cisco has traditionally been a strong contender in the enterprise networking space. What’s the new focus for Cisco and what’s the company’s strategy to take these plans forward?
While we continue to focus on the network platform and on traditional verticals, we also want to bring technological innovation to industries that have not seen major transformations in a long time. The key to achieving this is Smart + Connected communities and intelligent networks.

We look at markets such as power, education and real estate that are opening up, and explore ways to introduce smart intelligence. We believe technology can play a significant role in introducing efficiency.

When we entered Telephony, for instance, the industry had not seen major changes for some time. Then suddenly we had a significant transition by moving voice into IP.

In the power sector, technology can help cut down power loss and introduce efficiencies—thus reducing costs. This is enabled through smart grids.
We’re talking about the ‘Internet of Things’ where everything will be connected in the future. In preparation for this we’ll make routers more powerful and switches more intelligent. The network is becoming a platform and needs to have this intelligence—to do things like optimization—in order to be more efficient.