LAS VEGAS - Cisco last week used its annual customer conference to lay out the first of six new technology focus areas the company plans to announce over the next year and half, as it looks to expand deeper into the data center.

The first of these technologies is the company's Application Oriented Networks (AON) strategy, which is designed to optimize Cisco networks to run Web services. Cisco executives also hinted at making a bigger play in data center virtualization.

The Networkers event drew 7,000 attendees to the Las Vegas Convention Center, where they heard from CEO John Chambers and attended more than 200 technical sessions - the most popular of which were on security and VoIP. While attendees said they like where Cisco is headed, they cautioned the company not to overlook the basics.

"Cisco certainly has a strong vision, but the challenge is going to be providing guidance to customers on how to implement these things on a per-device level," said Ryan Morris, a network administrator for PricewaterhouseCoopers Canada in Toronto. "Cisco needs to get more specific on how this technology [AON] will be rolled out."

Industry observers say as Cisco looks to expand its share of enterprise IT spending beyond network infrastructure it also might encounter friction with partners that sell products designed for next-generation data centers.

AON products that were introduced include modules that offload some XML-based message processing - once done in middleware server software - onto Cisco Catalyst 6500 switches and integrated services routers in branch offices. The products, scheduled to be released later this year, also include software to manage the flow of XML traffic.

Also announced were partnerships with XML middleware vendors such as IBM, SAP and Tibco, where their respective Web services schemes will be integrated into AON products.

"The network can do a lot of this 'middleware' function" of allowing different XML-based applications to talk to each other, Chambers said during a session with reporters. "What you really want the IT industry, the traditional IT companies, to focus on is the value they bring - the business applications - and let the network do what I call the overhead."

Chambers insisted AON is more about partnering with vendors to improve application performance than it is about cutting in on the middleware businesses of such companies.