This post was written by Katie Bumper
Cisco announced its new collaboration portfolio, consisting of Unified Communications, TelePresence and a new Web 2.0 application platform which will enable people “to connect, communicate, and collaborate” from any application, device and workspace. UC encompasses IP telephony, unified messaging, web and audio conferencing and contact centre solutions. The second pillar of collaboration is video, which ranges from Telepresence to desktop video-to-video conferencing. The third pillar of collaboration is Web 2.0 applications. Unified Communications System Release 7.0 offers improvements in total cost of ownership, ease of use, and interoperability with business applications.
Cisco Systems Inc. has announced plans to purchase Denmark-based DiviTech A/S, a provider of digital-service management systems, as part of a broader video strategy and product launch. DiviTech’s DSM products offer media broadcasters, cable and IPTV service providers an intuitive interface for creating, modifying and managing video networks. Cisco plans to integrate DiviTech’s DSM product with its ROSA network and element-management system to create a platform that offers digital video element, network and service management in a single product.
Cisco Systems Inc. says its opportunity in the video segment is $10 billion over the next 3-5 years, not including network upgrades required to support video applications. While physical security alone is an $8 billion market, TelePresence virtual conferencing alone is accounting for Cisco’s biggest product ramp, according to Marthin DeBeer, senior vice president of Emerging Technologies. According to DeBeer, Cisco has 100 customers for its TelePresence virtual conference rooms, and each customer has equipped anywhere from 50 to 200 office rooms with the system.
Cisco Systems Inc has launched a new edge router designed to improve Web speeds as more and more users have started downloading movies online with increasing access to the Internet with the use of mobile phones.The ASR 9000 edge router aims at providing six times the capacity of corresponding products from competitors like Juniper Networks Inc. Edge routers are placed at the periphery of a service provider’s network and closer to the actual user. The ASR 9000 will be available in six- and 10-slot versions. The starting price of the product is $80,000.
NW Tech Capital Inc. has announced that its newly acquired subsidiary, Teledigit Inc., has become a Select Certified Registered Partner with Cisco Systems. Teledigit will now be offering the Cisco Unified Communications Product line, featuring the industry best in IP, SIP, and VoIP communications. Focusing mainly on the Small & Medium Businesses (SMB) market target, Teledigit will be offering the Unified Communications 500 Series for Small Business, which unifies voice, video, data, and mobile applications on fixed and mobile networks, delivering a media-rich collaboration experience across business workspaces.
Cisco has announced that its new Cisco WAAS (Wide-Area Application Services) helps in reducing bandwidth requirements, data loss and the time for recovery and replication of data and for recovery. Also, it increases acceptable distance between data centers and aids regulatory compliance. The new version of this software optimizes data center replication capabilities for popular storage applications through a Replication Accelerator mode. The new technology will enable IT managers to overcome WAN bandwidth limitations when remotely replicating data over Internet Protocol (IP) networks between data centers.
Cisco subsidiary Linksys has introduced a new wireless router, tailored to the needs of home digital media content especially high-def video. WRT610N is a simultaneous dual-N band wireless router that operates in both the 5GHz and 2.4GHz spectrums. Users can connect entertainment-oriented devices, such as media center extenders, audio players or personal video recorders via the wider 5GHz band. The 5GHz spectrum is recommended for such high-def content because it provides more than seven times the number of non-overlapping wireless channels, which means clearer transmissions for big media files piped across the wireless network.
On ZDNet.co.uk, Tom Espiner quotes networking-product resellers as saying that Cisco Systems Inc. is not taking enough action to stamp out the sale of counterfeit products on internet auction sites. Mike Sheldon, chief executive of reseller Network Hardware Resale, told ZDNet.co.uk that Cisco was unwilling to co-operate with resellers to investigate potentially counterfeit Cisco products being sold on auction sites such as eBay. Both Network Hardware Resale and the United Network Equipment Dealer Association (Uneda), a trade association of over 300 secondary-market network-equipment dealers, said they have contacted Cisco on a number of occasions over the past three years. Although Cisco confirmed that it had not been working in conjunction with Uneda, it said that it had been working with other organizations to tackle counterfeiting.
BT Global Services has chosen to deploy equipment produced by network equipment titan Cisco Systems Inc. BT is to deploy the new Cisco ASR 100 series aggregation services routers after being involved in the testing of the product prior to its launch in March of this year. The routers will be deployed in BT Global Services’ major finance and enterprise markets for critical managed service applications, such as highly secure encryption and virtual private networks (VPN).
Cisco Systems Inc. has stopped the sales of PIX (Private Internet Exchange) firewall appliance with effect from July 28, thus ending one of the longest and most successful lives of a gateway security product ever. The PIX was the first Network Address Translation device and had later evolved into a stateful firewall. Cisco said that they will continue to sell add-ons to the PIX series until next year and will support the product until 2013.