Feb 13, 2008 Meeting Summary: Telepresence and Innovation at Cisco's Emerging Technology Group
Charles Stucki, VP and GM of Cisco's TelePresence Business Unit, provided an excellent overview of Cisco's Emerging Technology Group (ETG), with an emphasis on its first product- the Telepresence video conferencing for enterprise customers (and for Cisco's internal use). Confirming our earlier supposition about telecom companies concentrating on content, Chuck stated that Cisco was looking at Application layer technologies, such as video, rather then infrastructure technologies within its ETG.
For Cisco's take on emerging technologies, please visit:
http://blogs.cisco.com/innovation/emerging_technologies/
Here are the highlights of this excellent and informative talk:
-New collaboration and business models are changing the world- technology, information and services, social structures
-The pace of innovation is accelerating with video, mobility and virtualization
-Web 2.0 features wikis, blogs and mashups (also social networking sites, collaboration and conferencing)
-The next generation Internet- Web 3.0 - will make those available anywhere, using any media and any device.
-Video currently generates more traffic then the entire US Internet in 2000 (25 peta bytes/month). Internet video, in order of bandwidth consumption:You Tube streams, Xbox 360 movie downloads, My Space streams, Yahoo Videos and iTunes videos. This doesn't even count business video conferencing or video collaboration.
-Cisco's Emerging Technology Group is a new concept- disruptive innovation resulting in new products for new markets. It's mission is to create new technologies and new growth markets for Cisco. There are many external and internal sources of innovation. Cisco's ETG is focused on internal development through a "venture framework." Cisco will also be "an integrator of other companies disruptive solutions."
-Cisco believes that emerging technologies will be more at the Application layer, rather then the Infrastructure layers. (Opinion: This is a huge shift from traditional telecom and networking layers 1-4 to content based solutions- Presentation and Application layers).
-Cisco is looking for opportunities outside of the U.S. where growth is faster.
-Cisco currently has 2 Telepresence products: CTS 3000 for large meetings and CTS 1000 for small groups or 1:1 conferencing. (See slide: Cisco Telepresence Meeting Solution-Endpoint Offerings). They also have Multipoint capability "to connect multiple locations easily and flexibly."
-Several vertical markets for Telepresence were identified: global finance, manufacturing (especially high tech), Service Provider integtration, and retail consumer product groups (e.g. Proctor and Gamble).
Other Cisco Emerging Technologies+ include:
IPICS for systems interoperability- contextually integrates multiple modalities of communications for interoperability and collaboration
Video Surveillance for physical security
Video Analytics
Digital Media Management systems including desktop video and digital signage
+ Chuck stated that 80% of Cisco's emerging technologies will be video based.
For more information visit:
http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2007/ts_100207.html
Note
: There are other emerging technologies that Chuck could not identify at this time, as they have not been made public. He did say that Cisco's focus for these technologies continues to be on the enterprise market- where they have been networking equipment leaders for many years (e.g. routers and switches).
Cisco is pursuing many different types of innovation
, including: developing new technology (Telepresence, IP Telephony, WiFi), developing new products (CRS-1, IOS XR, Integrated Services Router), partnering with other companies (Network Admission Control), Spin in investments in companies (Andiamo), pursue acquisitions (WebEx), create new business models (Linksys, Meeting Place, NetSolve).