Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Cisco Systems

Cisco Acquires Video Software Company NDS For $5 Billion

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 20:53:23 +0000

Cisco Systems Inc. has acquired NDS, an Israeli video systems company, for $5 billion. The deal was made in cash plus debt assumption. About 51% of NDS is currently owned by private equity company Permira and 49% by News Corp. NDS was trading publicly on the NASDAQ until they went private in 2009. The acquisition price is believed to be 35% higher of what the company was trading for at the time.

NDS was founded in 1988 by several scientists. The company was acquired by News Corp. in 1992 for $15 million and they listed on the Nasdaq in 1999. In 2009, News Corp. teamed up with Premira to buy them out for $3.7 billion. This acquisition further proves how serious Cisco is about the set top box business.

Cisco Systems Starting A Cloud Computing Strategy Called CloudVerse

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 20:03:16 +0000

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) has announced that they are launching a new cloud computing strategy called CloudVerse. The CloudVerse framework will combine data center operational software and cloud applications.

Why didn’t Cisco announce a cloud strategy earlier since they are heavily involved in the data center business. “Because of our position in the network, it’s presupposed that the strategy is there,” stated Cisco senior director for hosted collaboration solutions Eric Schoch. “But we wanted to publicly announce a strategy that’s backed by a belief system where the market is going.”

Some of the services that Cisco will be offer through CloudVerse is:
- Automation tools for cloud delivery
- Network services management software
- Cloud-to-cloud connect (network positioning system on ASR 1000 and 9000 series routers)
- Hosted collaboration software for private clouds
- Carrier-grade private cloud offering for large enterprises

[ZDNet]

Cisco Acquires Microsoft Office Collaboration Plugin Company Versly

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 17:32:25 +0000

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) has acquired a private San Francisco based company called Versly. Versly has integrated collaboration capabilities within Microsoft Office applications through a plug-in. Versly’s application allows people to collaborate around documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and e-mail.

“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,” stated Cisco Collaboration Software Group (CSG) vice president and general manager Murali Sitaram. “Furthermore, the integration with Versly will drive productivity improvements for organizations and their knowledge workers, many of whom are among the 600 million Microsoft Office users.”

Collaboration is a priority at Cisco. This acquisition will give Cisco partners a new collaboration solution for customers. Versly software will be integrated into Cisco Quad, Cisco Jabber, and Cisco WebEx. Versly’s employees will be hired into Cisco’s CSG unit. The financial details are unknown.

[Cisco Press Release]

Cisco Accused Of Aiding Repression Against Falun Gong Spiritual Group In Lawsuit

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 23 May 2011 07:47:22 +0000

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) is being accused of designing a surveillance system that allow the government in China to monitor and suppress the Falun Gong spiritual group according to a lawsuit filed against the networking and voice company. The lawsuit was filed in the Federal District Court for the Northern District of California in San Jose.

The spiritual group claims that Cisco provided a surveillance system called the “Golden Shield.” The Golden Shield allegedly allowed the Chinese government track and censor the Internet activities of the group.

The Falun Gong members had suffered from false imprisonment, torture, and wrongful death as a result of the technology according to the lawsuit. The Human Rights Law Foundation in Washington D.C. filed the lawsuit on behalf of the group.

The 52-page lawsuit named Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers along with two other executives as the defendants. The group is seeking an unspecified amount of compensatory and punitive damages. A spokesperson for Cisco said that there was “no basis” for the allegations and that the company plans to defend the lawsuit “vigorously.”

“Cisco does not operate networks in China or elsewhere, nor does Cisco customize our products in any way that would facilitate censorship or repression,” said the Cisco spokesperson.

The Falun Gong is a religious momvement that has about 70-100 million followers. The Falun Gong movement was founded in 1992 and uses the Internet as a point for congregation for religous activities. The Chinese government started to view the group as a politiiccal threat and wanted to prevent them from gaining power.

Allegedly the Golden Shield (known as Policenet in Cisco marketing materials) resulted in the arrest of about 5,000 Falun Gong members. The lawsuit said that Cisco “competed aggressively” for the contract to design the Golden Shield system while knowing that it would be used to suppress the Falun Gong religion.

The three plaintiffs in the case are Ivy He (Canada), Liu Guifu (New York), Charles Lee (American citizen that traveled to China in 2003 and was detained/tortured at the airport until 2006).

[CNET]

Cisco Shutting Down Flip Video Camera Business After Acquiring It For $590 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 03:03:31 +0000

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) is shutting down the Flip video camera business. Cisco acquired Pure Digital Technologies about two years ago. About 550 employees in the Pure Digital division will be laid off as part of the restructuring. Cisco said that they are planning to keep supporting Flipshare customers that upload media to the web.

“We are making key, targeted moves as we align operations in support of our network-centric platform strategy,” stated Cisco CEO John Chambers. “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.”

[GigaOM]

Photo Of Silicon Valley Tech Titans and President Obama

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 22:10:06 +0000

The White House has uploaded some images on Flickr of President Barack Obama’s meeting with the tech titans of Silicon Valley. This photo symbolizes how the meeting went. The meeting was about how these executives plan to support entrepreneurship, increase exports, and strengthen the economy. The executives in this picture includes:

-John Doerr, partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
-Carol Bartz, president and CEO, Yahoo!
-John Chambers, CEO and chairman, Cisco Systems
-Dick Costolo, CEO, Twitter
-Larry Ellison, co-founder and CEO, Oracle
-Reed Hastings, CEO, NetFlix
-John Hennessy, president, Stanford University
-Steve Jobs, chairman and CEO, Apple
-Art Levinson, chairman and former CEO, Genentech
-Eric Schmidt, chairman and CEO, Google
-Steve Westly, managing partner and founder, Westly Group
-Mark Zuckerberg, founder, president and CEO, Facebook

President Obama Meeting With Major Silicon Valley CEOs Today

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 20:51:26 +0000

President Barack Obama is making a trip to Silicon Valley today and is meeting with some major tech CEOs. The names of the executives that he is meeting was revealed by the L.A. Times. The meeting will be about supporting entrepreneurship, increasing exports, strengthening the economy, etc. Below is the list of people that he is meeting:

* John Doerr, partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
* Carol Bartz, president and CEO, Yahoo!
* John Chambers, CEO and chairman, Cisco Systems
* Dick Costolo, CEO, Twitter
* Larry Ellison, co-founder and CEO, Oracle
* Reed Hastings, CEO, NetFlix
* John Hennessy, president, Stanford University
* Steve Jobs, chairman and CEO, Apple
* Art Levinson, chairman and former CEO, Genentech
* Eric Schmidt, chairman and CEO, Google
* Steve Westly, managing partner and founder, Westly Group
* Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder, president and CEO, Facebook

Cisco To Acquire Inlet For $95 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 23:34:57 +0000

Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) is acquiring digital video technology company Inlet Technologies for $95 million. This is Cisco’s way of expanding the router and enterprise telecommuting business. Inlet designs software for video streaming and digital encoding and some of their customers include ABC, HSN, MLB, Microsoft, MTV, NBC, and Yahoo! The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2011.

Linksys E4200 Dual-Band Router Has 6 Antennas

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 17:54:12 +0000

Cisco has announced a new router called the Linksys E4200 router. The E4200 has 6 antennas and dual-band wireless-N. The 6 antennas are internal and external which can shoot at 450Mbps at 5GHz, or 300Mbps at 2.4GHz. The E4200 costs $180 and will be available in a few months. The E4200 also has four Gigabit Ethernet ports.

Cisco Videoscape To Take On Google TV

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 08:56:48 +0000

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) announced Videoscape at CES. Videoscape is a set-top box that streams video, which means that it is a Google TV and Apple TV competitor. Cisco also has a Videoscape Media Gateway that can stream local video content across all of your devices. Below is the full press release:

Cisco and Service Providers Aim to Reinvent the TV Experience with ‘Videoscape’

New Platform Combines Entertainment from Multiple Sources with Social Media, Communications and Mobility to Create an Immersive TV Experience

Las Vegas, NV – Jan. 5, 2011 – Cisco today announced the release of Cisco Videoscape®, a comprehensive TV platform for service providers that brings together digital TV and online content with social media and communications applications to create a new, truly immersive home and mobile video entertainment experience. Videoscape is part of Cisco’s overall video strategy to provide the next generation of TV that is simpler for consumers, and transforms the market opportunity for service providers. Cisco is currently working with several major global service provider customers, including Telstra, to enable next-generation video experiences through the Videoscape platform.

Overview:

* Cisco Videoscape is an open platform that utilizes the cloud, the network, and client devices to deliver new video experiences over the Internet.
* New elements of Videoscape include:
o In the home:
+ The Videoscape media gateway for the integration of voice, linear and online video, high-speed data, Wi-Fi and network traffic routing.
+ The Videoscape IP set-top box, engineered to support all video forms delivered to a TV, including pay TV, broadcast channels, premium channels, VoD and the Web.
+ Videoscape software clients that extend the Videoscape experiences to a wide variety of home and mobile devices, from connected TVs to tablets, smartphones and more.
o In the cloud:
+ The Videoscape Media Suite, which offers full life-cycle content management so that service providers can efficiently and cost-effectively manage and publish content across multiple screens.
o In the network:
+ The Cisco Conductor for Videoscape, which orchestrates various services and subscriber-management functions across the cloud, the network and client devices.
o These five new product families are part of Cisco’s medianet architecture, and work in conjunction with its existing portfolio of network products (the Cisco Carrier Routing System, Aggregation Services Routers, Content Delivery System and Cable Modem Termination Systems), and cloud technologies (Cisco Unified Computing SystemTM and Cisco Nexus®), along with Cisco Advanced Services.

Key Benefits of Videoscape:

* For consumers, Videoscape delivers:
o Immersive experiences. Access to vast entertainment content sources, including broadcast channels, pay TV and the Web, integrating the Internet, social media, communications and mobility. The result is an experience that offers:
+ Ease of use. Videoscape provides easier access from multiple devices to content from multiple sources.
+ More entertainment possibilities on-screen, as content is delivered from a greater range of sources, including broadcast channels, on-demand TV, DVR and the Web.
+ More social and interactive features that integrate popular social networking websites and Cisco ?mi Telepresence video conferencing technology to allow you to show, share and engage with others through the TV.
+ More choices for content on the go, enabling consumers to take their TV experiences with them, viewing multiple forms of content over a wide range of mobile devices and smart phones.
o Cisco quality-of-experience. Videoscape has network intelligence built in to enhance Internet video on the TV and to deliver the premium quality necessary for a higher-resolution experience instead of “best-effort” quality.
* For service providers, Videoscape offers:
o Expanded business models. Videoscape differentiates service provider video offerings from the competition and extends service opportunities for revenue generation. New models could include capabilities such as application delivery, home Telepresence, in-video e-commerce and more.
o Extended service reach. Videoscape enables service providers to monetize activities outside their own network or traditional device footprints. For example, a service provider can offer a branded and personalized experience to its customers, regardless of their location or method of accessing content.

Supporting Quotes:

* David Thodey, CEO, Telstra
“We see tremendous opportunity with IP video services that offer consumers interactive, internet-like experiences using both the TV and the PC. We worked with Cisco to deploy a Content Delivery Network that quickly proved to be a key differentiator for Telstra, and means we can provide products and services with a more consistent and reliable video experience to multiple devices. Our CDN supports the breadth and depth of content that gives our customers choice and reliability to download and access their favorite movies and programs to the TV using our T-Box media player, through direct download to the TV, or via the PC.”

* Pankaj Patel, senior vice president and general manager, Service Provider Group, Cisco
“Our service provider customers like Telstra are well-positioned to lead the way toward better, faster services that give consumers real-time entertainment choices they didn’t have before. Consumers are looking for a personalized TV experience that can be taken with them irrespective of location or device. Cisco Videoscape is the only entertainment solution available today that delivers this experience in full scope, combining all the necessary technology components of the cloud, the network and client devices.”

[Cisco PR]