RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – John Chambers’ vision to transform Cisco from a networking company into one that provides “triple play” capability for utilization of voice, video and data at high speeds from either home, wireless device or work is coming into focus.
All types of Cisco hardware and software advances heralding the further advances of convergence technology will be on display in Atlanta starting this weekend. Cisco, its recently acquired Scientific Atlanta subsidiary and Linksys, another Cisco property, will team up at the National Cable & Telecommunications show. The event runs from April 9-11 at the Georgia World Congress Center.
It’s appropriate that much of Chambers’ vision will be seen at a cable TV-related show. Demand for video services via broadband is driving network strategy around the world, and Cisco is racing to enhance means of satisfying that hunger with Internet Protocol TV, or IPTV, technology.
In an interview with Bloomberg news service earlier this week, the Cisco chief executive officer said IPTV is developing into a major market. And he appears to have has positioned Cisco to capitalize on that opportunity.
“The market’s going to move with tremendous speed,” Chambers told Bloomberg. “If there is such a thing as a killer app, video is it.”
Chambers spearheaded the drive to acquire Linskys and Scientific Atlanta as part of a strategy to drive convergence of voice, video and data services across wireless, wireline and cable, or what has come to be known as the “triple play”.
Cisco is touting the demonstration of convergence products as “The Connected Life”.
The Atlanta show is a coming-out party of sorts for Cisco, which closed on the $6.9 billion of Atlanta-based Scientific Atlanta in February. Scientific Atlanta’s expertise has been in development of set-top boxes for use with cable TV systems.
Linsksys concentrates on networking products for homes and small businesses.
Cisco plans to demonstrate how consumers and business users can access content through personal computers, cell phones, televisions and mobile devices.
“Our connected life reflects the growing trend of many services to many screens, anytime, anywhere,” said Jeff Spagnola, vice president of service provider marketing at Cisco, in a statement. “End users want consistent experiences across services and across devices. To realize the connected life vision, Cisco, Scientific Atlanta and Linksys are coming together in Atlanta to show cable operators from around the world how they can transform themselves to become experience providers.”
As part of that “experience”, Cisco will demonstrate its Internet Protocol next-generation network (IP NGN) technology designed to help cable operators and service providers to utilize IP-based technology.
Scientific Atlanta will showcase a variety of advances including the technology to enable users to stream content ranging from games to videos from a personal computer to a set-top digital video recorder for viewing, playing and listening on a TV.
Media convergence has been discussed for years. It’s coming. Very fast.
