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Updated: Cisco To Buy Interactive TV And Security Specialist NDS In $5B Deal

Ingrid Lunden — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 09:34:01 +0000

Yesterday I wrote about how Israel is trying to promote itself as the next hotbed of consumer and Internet startups, moving beyond its traditional roots in “hard” technology. But today comes news of a deal that is firmly about its existing might in the latter category: Cisco is reported to be gearing up to purchase interactive TV and security specialist NDS, founded in Israel in 1988, for a sum believed to be in the region of $5 billion. Update: Cisco has now issued a release confirming its intention to buy NDS. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2012, and it will be incorporated into Cisco’s Videoscape platform, which covers cloud, network and end-user elements of the video delivery business.

According to the Israeli financial daily the Calcalist (translation here), the deal is expected to close in the coming days. NDS is 51 percent owned by Permira, and 49 percent owned by media giant News Corp.

NDS, which was founded in 1988, was bought by News Corp. in 1992 for the now-tiny sounding sum of $15 million. The company uses NDS’ technology in its extensive pay-TV business, for encoding of the set-top boxes and corresponding cards that enable them to run.

While the company has its roots in set-top box business for TVs, more recently it has been extending its delivery technology to other devices like tablets (kooky promotional shot from NDS’s site pictured here) as well as smartphones and PCs. Other companies using NDS’s technology include Astro, Bharti, Canal Plus, China Central Television, Cox, DIRECTV, Kabel Deutschland, UPC (a unit of Liberty Global) and Vodafone.

In 1999, NDS went public, but was again taken private in 2009 at a value of $3.7 billion, with Permira coming in to buy 51 percent, and News Corp. keeping the remainder.

That $3.7 billion is $1.3 billion less than the price Cisco is reportedly paying for it. The company brings in revenues of around $1 billion annually. It is now headquartered in the UK although continues to run an extensive R&D operation in Israel.

The deal, if accurate, would represent a significant investment on the part of Cisco in extending its home gateway business. It would also represent a step back for News Corp. from hardware and physical assets, putting by default more emphasis on its existing content businesses, which include entertainment studios, television channels, Internet properties and newspapers.

The news comes on the same day as another big deal in the vendor world: Avaya, a competitor to Cisco in the enterprise space, has bought Radvision for $230 million.

We have contacted Cisco for a comment on this story and will update as we learn more.

Cisco’s Mood Message: Not Happy With Microsoft/Skype Deal; Appealing To EU

Ingrid Lunden — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 19:11:15 +0000

As one big tech merger gets approved by the EU, another might get kicked back into play. Today, Cisco launched an appeal against the purchase of Skype by Microsoft, a deal that was originally unconditionally approved by the regulators back in October 2011.

The appeal hinges on Cisco’s contention that Microsoft and Skype will limit how users of different video calling systems will be able to speak to each other. Cisco is being joined in its appeal by Messagenet, another video conferencing provider that stands to lose out if a dominant Microsoft/Skype team begin to roll out video calling products using Microsoft’s Lync platform.

According to a source close to Cisco, TechCrunch understands that Cisco put in its complaint at the last possible minute — the deadline for objections is tomorrow, Wednesday.

The source also tells TC that the reason it waited until the last minute was because it was trying to negotiate directly with Microsoft to come to an agreement on common standards.

“Microsoft argued during the commission’s review of Tandberg [which Cisco bought in 2010] that there should be conditions of interoperability,” the source said. “Cisco waited because it has been in ongoing discussions with Microsoft and it could reach business terms without making the appeal. But Microsoft was not ready to sign up.”

TC has reached out to Microsoft for comment and will update this post with its response. Update: In an emailed statement, a spokesperson from Microsoft said it believed the original approval, in which Cisco participated, would stand:

“The European Commission conducted a thorough investigation of the acquisition, in which Cisco actively participated, and approved the deal in a 36-page decision without any conditions. We’re confident the Commission’s decision will stand up on appeal.”

Marthin DeBeer, the SVP of Cisco’s emerging business group, argues in a blog post that this is not about Cisco trying to quash the merger altogether — Microsoft is also an important partner and customer to Cisco — but to get the EU to put more conditions on it going through, to enforce more interoperability.

“Cisco does not oppose the merger, but believes the European Commission should have placed conditions that would ensure greater standards-based interoperability, to avoid any one company from being able to seek to control the future of video communications,” he writes.

Although a fair number of enterprises use video conferencing services, the technology has not been significantly commercialized for the mass-market, with companies like Skype, Apple, Google and many others offering free services. At issue here is how this may play out as a business in the future: “Microsoft’s plans to integrate Skype exclusively with its Lync Enterprise Communications Platform could lock-in businesses who want to reach Skype’s 700 million account holders to a Microsoft-only platform,” DeBeer argues.

The Number Of Mobile Devices Will Exceed World’s Population By 2012 (& Other Shocking Figures)

Sarah Perez — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 19:58:59 +0000

Despite its long and boring name, Cisco’s “Visual Networking Index (VNI) Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update” is one of the more fascinating data-filled reports you’ll read this year. The report examines the dramatic growth we’re seeing in the mobile Internet space, including the massive demands for mobile data, the growth of mobile video, and the rise of the smartphone as new gateway to the web itself.

Globally, mobile data traffic grew 2.3-fold over 2011, more than doubling for the fourth year in a row. The traffic even grew faster than Cisco had earlier predicted: they had pegged growth at 131% year-over-year. In actuality, traffic grew by 133%.

In 2011, mobile data traffic was 8 times the size of the entire global Internet in 2000 (597 petabytes vs. 75 petabytes). That was only a dozen years ago, but it may as well have been eons.

And, in one of the report’s more telling figures, the number of mobile-connected devices will exceed the number of people on earth by the end of 2012. By 2016, there will be 1.4 mobile devices per capita. That year, there will be over 10 billion mobile-connected devices, including machine-to-machine (M2M) modules. Again, the number will exceed the world’s population at that time (7.3 billion).

VIDEO

The mobile web’s growth, and its unending need for more data, more connectivity and more bandwidth, shows no signs of slowing. One of the top activities for mobile users in particular, is mobile video. For the first time, video accounted for over half of all traffic (52%). This is, in part, due to the increases in connectivity and phones capable of video viewing. By 2016, video will be over 70% of traffic.

Video’s growth can also be attributed to the increases in devices that can do more, faster at greater speeds, which help to impact the global bottom line in terms of data usage. Case in point: 4G phones, only 0.2% of mobile connections, are already accounting for 6% of mobile data traffic. By 2016, 4G will reach 6% of all connections, but 36% of total traffic, or 9 times that of non-4G phones.

The top 1% of mobile data subscribers, meanwhile, account for 24% of data traffic. And smartphones as a group, still a minority representing only 12% of the total handsets in use today, now account for over 82% of global handset traffic.

MOBILE CLOUD

In some cases, mobile cloud apps are video apps (think YouTube and Netflix), but other times they’re music (Pandora, Spotify), gaming, or social networking apps. But the increases in mobile connectivity have allowed what would otherwise be limited hardware devices to function as tools for media consumption.

A user with an 8 GB smartphone who streams music and video will consume more content over 2 years that can be stored on the device itself. And a smartphone owner who uses Netflix, Pandora and Facebook will generate more than twice the volume of traffic as generated by a smartphone owner only using email and web apps.

SMARTPHONES

Smartphones are growing in popularity and usage, too, as indicated by the increases in the group’s data traffic demands. In 2011, the average smartphone usage nearly tripled, up from 55 MB/month last year to 150 MB/month today. By 2012, over 100 million smartphone users will be using over 1 GB/month of data. And by 2016, the monthly global smartphone data traffic will pass 10 exabytes per month, with the average smartphone generating 2.6 GB/month, a 17-fold increase from 2011′s average.

FEATURE PHONES

Even though the perception in developed markets like ours is that smartphones are everywhere, the majority of the mobile market is still using basic handsets. In 2011, these devices accounted for 88% of the mobile landscape, and their mobile data usage increased 2.3-fold to 4.3 MB from 1.9 MB last year. In other words, even “dumb phones” are getting smarter, and capable of consuming more mobile data.

TABLETS

But the mobile web is no longer accessed by handsets alone. Tablets are a growing group, too, with their own data demands. The number of mobile-connected tablets tripled last year to 34 million, each generating 3.4 times more traffic than the average smartphone (517 MB/month vs. 150 MB/month for smartphones). By 2016, tablets will be 10% of global mobile data traffic.

Or, in what may be my favorite number from the report: by 2016, mobile-connected tablets will generate almost as much traffic as the entire global mobile network does in 2012, 1.1 exabytes per month. (The global network will reach 1.3 exabytes/month next year). Think about that: the tablet Internet will grow that quickly to become the size of this year’s mobile Internet. If you’re working on anything in the mobile space and have put off addressing how you’ll meet the needs of the tablet user, you’re already behind. And it goes without saying that if you’re building for the web and haven’t addressed mobile, you’re basically just lost.

ANDROID VS IPHONE

Finally, what good mobile data could refrain from weighing in on the Android vs. iPhone battle? In terms of data consumption, it appears Android is winning (well, using more data – I’m not sure if that’s “winning.”) As Android apps are freer to run in the background, the figure is not so surprising. But this is also a function of Android’s increased global market share. Today, Android devices’ data consumption is 29% higher than Apple devices in terms of megabytes used per month per connection.

There’s tons more data in this report – I’m barely scratching the surface. To read more, head over here.

Cisco Acquires Collaboration Software Maker Versly

Robin Wauters — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 12:21:53 +0000

Cisco this morning announced that it has acquired San Francisco startup Versly, a privately-held company that develops collaboration tools that integrate with Microsoft Office applications.

Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but all Versly employees will be integrated into Cisco’s Collaboration Software Group (CSG) upon the close of the acquisition.

Versly builds plug-ins that enable groups of people to collaborate around content in Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations and emails.

From the looks of it, the service was still in private beta, so this is a quick exit for Versly.

Here’s how Murali Sitaram, VP and general manager, CSG, Cisco, pitches the acquisition:

“Collaboration is a top priority at Cisco. With this acquisition we’re enhancing our collaboration offerings and improving the user experience by integrating social technologies within the business applications individuals and teams use at work.”

Versly’s software will be integrated into offerings such as Cisco Quad, Jabber and WebEx.

According to its CrunchBase profile, Versly was backed by seed funding raised from Accel Partners, Baseline Ventures, 500 Startups and a couple of angel investors, including Scott Dietzen, Kenny Van Zant, Jonathan Katzman and Rasool Rayani.

The company was started by former BEA and Sun exec Benjamin Renaud and former Yahoo-er Erik Eccles. The rest of the team is detailed here.

Cisco To Buy Comptel’s Axioss Software Assets For $31 Million In Cash

Robin Wauters — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 07:48:40 +0000

Cisco this morning announced its intent to purchase service fulfillment software assets and associated employees from the UK subsidiary of partner company Comptel, for 21.3 million euros or roughly $31 million in cash. Axioss is a fulfillment solution developed by Axiom Systems, a company that Comptel acquired back in 2008.

With the acquisition, Cisco hopes to extend network and service management technologies across its IP-based network platforms and enable service providers to more quickly launch new video, data, mobility and cloud services to their customers, using a single management architecture.

The AXIOSS software suite will also enhance Cisco Prime, which enables service providers to better manage their networks and network services, the company says.

Upon the close of the acquisition, which is expected to occur in the third quarter of calendar year 2011, the AXIOSS team will be integrated into the Cisco NMTG and Cisco Advanced Services Group.

Gareth Senior, Comptel CTO and member of its Executive Board, will also be transferring to Cisco.

Comptel and Cisco will continue their cooperation across other areas of OSS/BSS, e.g. cloud mediation and charging. Comptel says it will continue in fulfilment business developing and selling its Comptel Fulfillment Solution, retain its existing Axioss customer relationships and continue to support these customers.

The Cisco Cius Enterprise Tablet Hitting Verizon Later This Summer

Matt Hickey — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 13:08:32 +0000

The Cisco Cius tablet is nearing release a full year after its announcement. The enterprise tablet is set to set the IT world a blaze this July 31 and Verizon will be one of the official retailers along with AT&T. The $750 tablet will hit Big Red sometime this summer; the press release didn’t confirm or even mention the July 31st date. Instead, the presser states that the tablet is coming late summer.

Still, the Cius tablet might become one of first tablets outside of the iPad to successfully infuriate the world of enterprise communication. Cisco knows their market probably better than anyone else and smartly choose to sell in the lucrative enterprise market rather than the cutthroat world of consumer gadgets. Presser after the break. Oh, and yeah, it’s a wild one complete with references to Moses and ill-fated attempts to make Verizon’s 4G LTE hotspots relevant to the Cius.

Verizon Combines the Power of 4G LTE with the Cisco Cius Tablet to Improve Mobile Enterprise Collaboration
Helps Businesses Employ Tablets for Industry-Specific Applications
News Release

NEW YORK – July 13, 2011 –

The ancient Greeks relied on them. So did Moses when it came to accomplishing one of his most significant deliverables. And now businesses are equipping mobile workforces with tablets of their own to boost productivity and speed customer service.

To meet this newest trend in tablet use, Verizon is combining the power of its 4G LTE network with the Cisco Cius™ to help customers decentralize and accelerate decision-making for better business outcomes.

The Cisco Cius will be available to Verizon enterprise and government customers around the world later this summer, and those located domestically will be able to combine the device with a Verizon Wireless 4G LTE mobile hot spot. Designed for the enterprise, the Android-based Cisco Cius combines voice, video, collaboration and virtualization capabilities on one device. When powered by Verizon’s 4G LTE network, mobile workers will be able to easily use bandwidth-intensive video applications – including between devices – for more effective collaboration.

“Mobile applications over intelligent high-speed networks will continue to eliminate barriers in the workplace,” said Mike Smith, vice president for Verizon enterprise communications, network and mobility sales. “We’re forecasting a perfect storm where advanced enterprise tools such as the Cisco Cius mesh with the speeds made possible by 4G LTE to make the virtual office a more robust reality than ever.”

Putting Tablets to Work

In general, industries such as retail, financial services, healthcare and government can employ tablets to change the pace of their business.

Retail: Sales associates can employ tablets while out on the floor to look up product and inventory information for customers, in addition to processing transactions on the spot.

Financial Services: Bankers and financial advisors can take advantage of the video capabilities of tablets for face-to-face meetings with clients, saving the time it takes to meet up at physical locations.

Health care: Medical professionals can use tablets to collaborate on patient care and speed critical decision-making.

Government: Tablets can increase productivity of government users – from military to civilian government field workers to emergency first responders – allowing them to enter information or share it quickly with remote offices to complete the business of government more efficiently.

Through Verizon’s Managed Mobility portfolio, enterprise customers can securely deploy a wide range of devices to employees. Capabilities include device management; expense tracking management; lock and wipe features for protecting sensitive data; and mobile delivery of popular business and consumer apps from the cloud. In addition, the company offers a full suite of professional services to help organizations create policies and design mobility programs to suit varied requirements.

Verizon is a global network communications leader in driving better business outcomes for enterprises and government agencies. Verizon delivers integrated IT and communications solutions via its global IP and mobility networks to enable businesses to securely access information, share content and communicate. Verizon is rapidly transforming to a cloud-based “everything-as-a-service” delivery model that will put the power of enterprise-class solutions within the reach of every business. Find out more at www.verizonbusiness.com.

It's A Pretty Big Ship: HP Isn't After Apple, It's After The Enterprise

John Biggs — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 15:41:07 +0000

Loopinsight has an interview with HP’s developer relations guy, Richard Kerris, where he basically says that WebOS is HP’s enterprise strategy, not their consumer play. He says:

“We think there’s a better opportunity for us to go after the enterprise space and those consumers that use PCs,” said Kerris. “This market is in it’s infancy and there is plenty of room for both of us to grow.”

“We think the world of Apple and have the utmost respect for their products,” said Kerris. “It would be ignorant for us to say that we are going to take it [the market] away from Apple.”

Beneath this scraping and bowing is an important consideration: there is no viable tablet for the enterprise and all signs point to Blackberry fumbling things with their absurd Playbook. Knowledge workers will need (read “want”) tablets and HP is putting itself in place to give them to them.

As flawed as the TouchPad is, it’s not as bad as people let on. It works, it will have a stronger support base than Android on the aggregate, and HP will put its might behind WebOS, bringing it to various desktops and devices as an alternative to Google and Apple. It will end up on devices like printers and probably office “desktop tablets” and other boring stuff, a market that Cisco, also, is trying to grab with their offerings.

It never hurts to be boring in the IT space, and if HP knows anything it’s how to be boring.

Cisco Brings AppHQ App Storefront To It's 7-Inch Cius Tablet

Jordan Crook — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 22:18:41 +0000

A year ago today, we predicted that Cisco’s enterprise-focused 7-inch Cius tablet would never ship. It was a reasonable prediction at the time, but it turns out we were wrong. In fact, the Cisco Cius tablet did ship in late March, barely making its promised release date of “Q1 2011.” Today, Cisco unveiled its latest product for Cius, the AppHQ application storefront, hoping to gain a little more traction with potential enterprise customers.

Basically, AppHQ is a way of keeping the applications on an enterprise device safe and secure. The Cius itself is an Android tablet running 2.2 Froyo, so the Android Market is already in place. But the notion of employees downloading random apps to the same device that holds sensitive company data is likely to cause heart attacks in the IT department. With AppHQ, IT has total and complete power over what applications are available to the company’s users.

AppHQ is already loaded with plenty of Android apps, but Cisco tests those apps to make sure that they keep all the company’s information safe. On top of that, companies can develop applications specific to their own business, and create a “store-within-a-store,” if you will.

So let’s say you work for Sony, and you’ve created this, that and the other app for your employees’ Cius tablets. You can publish those apps to AppHQ, but then every other company using Cius has access to them. By upgrading to the store-within-a-store format, those Sony-specific apps are only available to your employees. Businesses also have the option to customize their storefront with logos, various color schemes, and icons to make the app store experience as company-specific as possible. As expected, store-within-a-store costs extra, but details on that weren’t available.

Luckily, the Cius will grab Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) once it’s ready, and has 4G support “planned.” On July 31, the Cisco Cius will roll out globally, along with its new AppHQ storefront. The 7-inch tablet is priced at $750, but bulk orders may see a discount depending on size.

iControl Lands Over $50 Million For Broadband Home Management Software

Robin Wauters — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 11:46:31 +0000

iControl Networks, a provider of broadband home management software solutions, this morning announced that it has raised over $50 million in Series D funding, bringing total investment in the company to more than $100 million.

The round was led by energy and clean tech investors, with notable backers like Cisco, Comcast Ventures, Intel Capital, Charles River Ventures, the Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers iFund, Rogers Communications and Tyco International also participating.

The company says the additional capital will help it accelerate the deployment of iControl’s energy management solution and other broadband home management services, and position iControl for international expansion.

iControl offers OpenHome, a software platform that enables broadband service providers, home security companies and utilities to offer interactive services to their customers, allowing those customers to control and connect to their homes via the Web and mobile devices.

OpenHome currently powers Comcast’s XFINITY Home Security service, the nationally-launched ADT Pulse service, and is in market deployments with a slew of unannounced broadband service providers, according to the company.

CrunchBase Information

iControl

Information provided by CrunchBase

AT&T To Sell The Cisco Cius

John Biggs — Wed, 11 May 2011 13:26:49 +0000

Remember a few months ago when you kind of cared about the Cisco Cius and then you realized it was just a little screen made for video meetings and wasn’t really a consumer device? Well, prepare for that realization again because AT&T is about to provide HSPA+ data service for this thing and presumably sell it to government and institutional buyers.

The device has a 7-inch screen with multitouch and runs on Wi-Fi and WLAN. You can basically read email with it and look at web pages and also edit file in the cloud. The best part? “Voice and video calls are supported in wired environments.” That’s right: one of the most interesting features is limited to a docked state.

I can only imagine some IT guy in 2020 stumbling over a dusty box of these and asking why anyone ever bought them. The older IT will just shrug and point up to the top floor of the building, explaining the boss thought buying Cisco was always a good idea.

No pricing but expect it to land this fall.

Could Flip Have Survived On Its Own? (TCTV)

Erick Schonfeld — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 00:32:38 +0000

When people build startups, we measure their measure success not only by how big is their exit, but also by how many lives their products touch and how long their brands lasts in the minds of consumers. Cisco’s decision today to shutter its Flip Video business two years after paying $590 million for it raises a series of questions which startup founder/investor Chris Dixon and I address in the video above. Why didn’t Cisco sell the business? Was the tax write-off bigger than anything Flip could have fetched?

But namely, was it inevitable that Flip would have failed on its own because it got in the way of the iPhone, or could it have adapted if it stayed independent? There is no right answer here. Imagine if Netflix had been acquired early on by Blockbuster or some other lumbering giant—it would never be where it is today. On the other hand, Android is great example of a company that flourished because it was acquired by Google and given the resources to become the powerhouse that it is today.

It’s not so much about the product. Android originally was working on a Sidekick-like device. “Great founders don’t move linearly,” says Dixon.

The best acquisitions seem to be those where the acquired company is left alone. But it is easier to adapt to a changing market if you are a standalone startup than if you are part of a larger company. Could Flip have survived on its own? And what would it be worth today if it hadn’t sold?

Power Assure's Software To Make Cisco Blade Servers More Energy Efficient

Lora Kolodny — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 20:35:51 +0000

At the Intel Developer Forum in Beijing today, Power Assure — a green IT business from Santa Clara, Calif. — revealed that its energy management software is now compatible with Cisco’s Unified Computing System (UCS) Blade servers.

According to Jed Scaramella, a research manager for servers at IDC, here’s how fast blade servers, in general, are gaining traction in the market:

In 2010, the server blade market in the U.S. was $2.7 billion, representing approximately 14 percent of the U.S. server market… [IDC] expects the blade segment to grow 19.8 percent in 2011 to $3.2 billion in the U.S – compared to the total U.S. server growth of 2.4 percent.

On a worldwide level, the blade market is expected to grow 22.4 percent in revenue over the next year to $7.3 billion, which is relative to total server worldwide revenue growth of 3.5 percent.

Growth in blades is driven by customers’ need to deliver a more flexible IT infrastructure; blades can simplify management and create an agile environment that is better able to respond to the changing needs of a business.

By design, blade servers (including Cisco’s) are supposed to use less energy, and take up less space than their predecessors. Still, Power Assure — and competitors like SynapSense — have designed software to make them even less power-consuming, and hopefully more affordable and longer-lasting, for data center owners and operators.

According to a post on Cisco’s corporate website, in September 2010 the company’s chief financial officer Frank Calderoni said that the company was seeing 82 percent growth for its UCS product line on a quarter over quarter basis. (Neither IDC nor Cisco offered specific market share data on these servers in time for publication.)

In general, Power Assure — whose investors include Good Energies, Point Judith Capital and Draper Fisher Jurvetson — claims its solutions cut ongoing power consumption for IT organizations by an average of 50 percent.

Computers and data centers in the U.S., in recent years, have only used a few percentage points of all electricity consumed in the country, but that number is on the rise along with the cost of electricity generation from traditional power sources.

For more information, check out the reports over at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories Data Center Energy Management website which covers the economic and environmental benefits of efficient IT organizations.

Cisco To Shut Down Flip Video Business; Will Give Pink Slips To 550 Employees

Leena Rao — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 12:46:14 +0000

Wow. Cisco has just issued a release stating that in a strategic plan to “align its operations,” the company will exit parts of its consumer businesses and realign the remaining consumer business to support four of its five key company priorities: core routing, switching and services; collaboration; architectures; and video. One of the casualties of this realignment: Cisco’s video camera Flip business, which was part of its $590 million acquisition of Pure Digital.

As part of the plan, Cisco close down its Flip business and “support current FlipShare customers and partners with a transition plan.” Cisco will also refocus its Home Networking business and integrate Cisco umi into the company’s Business TelePresence product line.

Cisco To Shut Down Flip Video Camera Business; Will Give Pink Slips To 550 Employees

Leena Rao — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 12:44:38 +0000

As part of the plan, Cisco will close down its Flip business and “support current FlipShare customers and partners with a transition plan.” Cisco will also refocus its Home Networking business and will integrate Cisco umi into the company’s Business TelePresence product line. As part of the transition, Cisco plans to eliminate 550 jobs.

Cisco CEO John Chambers issued this statement: “We are making key, targeted moves as we align operations in support of our network-centric platform strategy…As we move forward, our consumer efforts will focus on how we help our enterprise and service provider customers optimize and expand their offerings for consumers, and help ensure the network’s ability to deliver on those offerings.”

So Cisco is focusing on its enterprise customers, and is basically shutting down its consumer facing products. The writing was on the wall for the Flip video business. In a world where consumers can now record and stream video directly from their iPhone, Android or BlackBerry phone, Flip’s video camera business is no longer novel or useful.

Cisco also pulled the plug on its web email product earlier this year. Chambers recently wrote a regretful, ‘mea culpa’ note highlighting that the company had disappointed investors and lost credibility. In an effort to refocus the company, Chambers said that “we will take bold steps and we will make tough decisions.” Clearly one of these decisions involves killing the Flip video camera business.

Cisco Releases New Linksys Routers And Switches

John Biggs — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 12:36:42 +0000

In the world of high tech, routers and switches are the oft-ignored, older, awkward step-sisters of CE design. It is thus no longer. Cisco has just released a plethora of routers and switches, ranging from $60 to $160 on the wireless side and $29 to $74 on the switch side, that look like little alien racecars.

The new models in the E-Series come with the standard junk – 10/100 Mbps wired ports and 300 Mbps wireless access – and a few even have a special virtual USB system that allows you to connect distant devices just as if they were on your local USB bus. Exciting stuff, to be sure.

Most of this stuff is available now. Why not take one of these wallflowers for a spin?

Product Page

Cisco Announces Next-Generation Linksys Wireless Routers and Switches

Home Wireless Leader Unveils Sleek New Design with Unmatched Performance
for Premium Video, Gaming, and Entertainment Experiences

San Francisco, CA April 5, 2011 – Cisco® today continued its legacy of leadership in home networking with the launch of its new Linksys® E-Series family − a complete suite of powerful and easy-to-use next-generation wireless-n routers and switches. With sales of wireless-enabled products such as tablets and game consoles steadily growing and Internet video usage exploding, consumers are seeking greater performance, reliability and simplicity from their home wireless networks. The new Linksys wireless–n routers and switches, available today, offer a complete range of options that set a new standard for speed, range, and ease-of-use, while also sporting a visually-appealing new design.

The new Linksys E-Series lineup includes five routers, each with the latest technology in home wireless for a multitude of home entertainment experiences. The new routers not only provide the performance needed for today’s connected home, but also help to future-proof for new and emerging media technologies that are gaining traction with consumers, such as Internet-enabled TVs and Cisco’s ūmi telepresence. Designed with faster speeds (up to 450 Mbps*), other key features for select routers in the line include a 3×3 spatial stream configuration for improved coverage, external power amplifiers to maintain signal strength over a greater distance and reduce dead spots, and virtual USB technology** to connect USB printers, storage and devices to the network. The full line also boasts a new industrial design that combines sleek contours and advanced functionality − recently earning the prestigious 2011 Red Dot Product Design Award for product design, innovation and quality.

“With more than 70 million routers sold, Linksys brings a decade of leadership and innovation to create products that consumers trust for the best wireless quality, performance and experience,” said Simon Fleming-Wood, vice president of marketing, Cisco Consumer Products. “Our new Linksys line offers an array of solutions for the needs of today’s home networking consumer – from basic Internet surfing to video and music streaming, to gaming.”

According to industry research group IDC, only 39% of US homes have wireless, while only 11% are using wireless-n technology. Over the next five years wireless-n adoption is expected to nearly double due to the growth of wireless connected devices such as tablets, smartphones, and Internet-enabled TVs that require the latest wireless technology for optimal performance. (IDC, Worldwide Home Networking 2010-2014 Forecast Update, Doc.# 225479, Nov. 2010)

Cisco Connect Software Enables Easy Setup and Network Management

Each of the Linksys E-series routers include the acclaimed Cisco Connect software that makes it easy for consumers to set up and manage their wireless home network effortlessly. Unlike other wireless products that require 20 to 30 complicated steps to set up a single computer, Cisco Connect takes you through three simple steps from start to finish. The included Cisco Connect software makes it easy to: 1) add additional devices to the network, 2) set parental controls, 3) provide Internet access for guests on a separate guest network and 4) customize personal security settings such as passwords. Advanced users can also configure and manage their routers via the web browser.

The new routers feature the latest version of Cisco Connect, which now includes an Internet Speed Test that can check the bandwidth and speed of a user’s Internet connection.

New Switches Enable Easy Network Expansion and Power Saving Modes

The three new Linksys switches enable faster and simpler wired connections. New features include plug and play of Ethernet-enabled devices, Quality of Service (QoS) for traffic prioritization, auto-sensing ports, and power saving features.

Pricing and Availability

There are eight new products in the Linksys family — five routers and three switches. The suggested retail prices for the routers range from $59.99 to $179.99. Prices of the switches range from $29.99 to $74.99. The full line of Linksys routers and switches are available starting today at retailers nationwide or by visiting the Linksys website at www.linksys.com/store.

Cisco Buys Cloud Automation And Management Software Company newScale

Robin Wauters — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 12:11:35 +0000

Cisco this morning announced its intent to acquire newScale, a global provider of self-service and lifecycle management software for enterprise IT and private/hybrid cloud computing.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but newScale is a company that’s raised tens of millions of dollars in funding from a wide range of investors, according to CrunchBase.

Based in San Mateo, California, newScale develops products and solutions that enable companies to select and deploy cloud services within their businesses, allowing them to initiate the provisioning of their own systems and infrastructure on an as-needed basis.

Cisco says newScale will complement and expand its existing IT and cloud management and automation software offerings. Upon the close of the acquisition, the newScale team will fall within Cisco’s Advanced Services organization.

The acquisition is expected to close in the second half of Cisco’s fiscal year 2011, subject to customary closing conditions.

CrunchBase Information

newScale

Cisco

Information provided by CrunchBase

Cisco Drops Price Of ūmi Video Chat Service, Offers New 720p Version

Devin Coldewey — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 20:30:58 +0000

ūmi, the high-powered and ridiculously expensive video chatting service from Cisco, is getting a bit of a price drop. We were initially impressed with the quality at the announcement, but the $600 price tag was too high, to say nothing of the ridiculous $25/month plan that used a connection you were already paying for.

Well, either Cisco wildly overestimated the price people would pay for this thing, or… no, that’s pretty much the only option. At any rate, the price is coming down and there’s a new “cheaper” version.

The new ūmi 720 is essentially the same product but at 720p instead of 1080p. That’s nice, because the original needed something like a constant 5-megabit connection to stay at full quality, and even during the demos I noticed some glitches. With luck this 720p service is a little more reliable; it only requires 1.5 megabits. The new hardware costs $400. The price of the old 1080p rig is now $500.

The service itself has been lowered to $100/year or $10/month. It’s a good deal compared to the previous price, but really, why you would pay for a service that’s available for free elsewhere is beyond me. In fact, Cisco is releasing a PC version of their ūmi Connect video software for PCs this summer! Why buy a $400 webcam? Microsoft’s 1080p Lifecam Studio is sitting here on my monitor, and it can do solid high-def video chatting over a number of services. It costs $100.

Whoever the target market is for this service, I’m sure they’ll be overjoyed at this price drop. Or they won’t notice, because the target market is people who have too much money to begin with.

Apple, Google, Amazon, And Microsoft Make Up 4 Of The Top 10 Most Admired Companies

Erick Schonfeld — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 15:00:03 +0000

Every year, Fortune magazine (where I started out as a reporter) comes out with its list of the Most Admired Companies in the world. In truth, it doesn’t really change much from year to year. Apple, once again for the fourth year in a row, is No. 1, as it should be. The company single-handedly created an entirely new class of touch computing with the iPad last year, and is on it’s way to becoming the most valuable company in the world.

Google is No. 2 (although, confusingly, it’s overall score of 8.22 is higher than Apple’s 8.16—it turns out that those are their industry scores not their separate Top 50 scores, a spokesperson explains, even though they are labeled “overall scores”). And Amazon comes in at No. 7. Microsoft hangs on at No. 9. So four of the top 10 companies are from the technology industry. And IBM is No. 12. After that, the list becomes a mixed bag, and even a little questionable. Cisco, Intel, Netflix, eBay, Sony, and Oracle also made the list. Netflix totally deserves to be there and maybe Cisco, but the others just seem to grandfathered in. Where’s Yahoo?

Actually, before you put too much credence into this list, however, Goldman Sachs also made the list at No. 25. Yes, that Goldman Sachs, the one that turned out to be too big to jail for its culpability in the financial crisis and is spending $3.4 billion in legal fees just to defend itself this year alone.

Here are the Top 10 Most Admired companies according to Fortune:

1 Apple
2 Google
3 Berkshire Hathaway
4 Southwest Airlines
5 Procter & Gamble
6 Coca-Cola
7 Amazon.com
8 FedEx
9 Microsoft
10 McDonald’s

Cisco Completes Acquisition Of Pari Networks (Started By Former Cisco Execs)

Robin Wauters — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 13:19:43 +0000

Cisco this morning announced that it has completed its acquisition of privately-held Pari Networks, a provider of network configuration and change management solutions, in an effort to complement its own ‘smart service’ capabilities.

Pari Networks, notably, was founded by a group of former Cisco executives.

Cisco originally announced its intent to buy Pari Networks on January 26, 2011. Financial terms of the deal remain undisclosed, but Pari Networks employees are to become part of Cisco’s Technical Services.

Based in Milpitas, California, with part of its employee base in Hyderabad, India, Cisco declared that Pari Networks’ technology will be integrated into its smart services and help accelerate the ability of the company and its partners to manage the health and stability of customer networks through personalized services.

CrunchBase Information

Cisco

Information provided by CrunchBase

Wi-Fi Flip Camera Hits FCC, Launches In May?

Devin Coldewey — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 01:20:30 +0000

We’ve heard for a while now that Cisco plans to put out a Flip camera with wi-fi built in, but so far the rumors haven’t produced an actual product. Until now.

The FCC has taken a gander at a new digital video camera from Cisco that has 802.11a/b/g/n support. The confidentiality request asks that setup photos remain confidential May 1st, so I’m guessing that’s when they’re going official with it. Not much beyond this, but I’d say we’re looking at the real thing here.

[via Wireless Goodness]