The WLAN leader (and, um, more) is thinking about what's next. The debate continues, but I think it's all about the apps and the ability to sell whatever solutions the customer wants.
I spent the first half of this week at Cisco’s invitation-only, almost-always-annual (it wasn’t held last year) “C-Scape” analyst meeting, this year co-located with their huge (12,000+ real/8000+ virtual attendees) Cisco Live! customer/partner event. I can only afford to go to two or three of these briefings every year, but Cisco’s, for obvious reasons, is always a priority. In case those reasons are not obvious, Cisco is so broadly influential across both local- and wide-area wireless that not having insight into what the company is thinking and ultimately doing would call any analysis of the entire wireless world into question. So I was pleased to make the trek to sunny Las Vegas for this very intense event – we went basically non-stop Monday evening to Wednesday noontime, leaving attendees more than educated, if a bit otherwise backlogged and bleary-eyed.
Much of the information presented at C-Scape was under NDA, as is common, so I don’t have much in the way of news at this point. But a key topic of discussion was Cisco’s roadmap for its wireless-LAN business going forward, which they shared to some degree. And, of course, they asked what we thought. Again, I can’t comment on their specifics at this time, but here’s part of what I offered.
The wireless-LAN business will see a very high rate of innovation for at least three more years. There’s still a lot happening across the board, from new developments in basic technologies, to an ongoing debate over where the control plane of an enterprise-class system should reside, to a good number of new developments at both 802.11 and the Wi-Fi Alliance. But, eventually, the WLAN market starts to look a bit like the PC market – slow evolution rather than revolution, and the inevitable shakeout speaks more to manufacturing economies of scale and distribution than really exciting developments like MIMO, beamforming, and unified networking (and on and on).
But it would be wrong, or at least incomplete at that point in time, to ignore the importance of applications – yes, just as is the case with the PC, and, now quite obviously, in handsets as well. Cisco already has brilliant technology here, in the form of the under-merchandised Mobility Services Engine. I have always thought highly of this box, but the debate at C-Scape (between analysts) surrounding the product was intense at points. I remain convinced that the MSE will spearhead Cisco’s growth as the company goes forward – apps are just as important to both customer value and product differentiation here as anywhere else. You just watch – WSE will be a key part of Cisco’s strategy and will make a huge contribution towards maintaining their continued massive market share in the outyears.
One other point – CEO John Chambers introduced their very cool CIUS tablet at a typical Las Vegas-style event, complete with Cirque du Soliel-style performers (hey, they could have been the real thing for all I know…), and the demo was impressive and mostly flawless (just a couple of satellite-related hiccups). Now, it wasn’t so much that Cisco introduced a cool, personal-communications/collaboration-focused, Android-based tablet, but rather that they see subscriber units as so important in driving demand for their core product lines. And, as they have with video as such a driver of network evolution, they make an excellent case. As you probably know, I endorse and support the Web/cloud vision as the very future of IT, and, the iPad notwithstanding, Cisco has a real opportunity for leadership here. Couple this with an increased emphasis on services (which we also spent a good deal of time in Las Vegas on), and, bottom line – Cisco has the potential to be a leader not just in wired and wireless networking gear, but in all of IT going forward.
Keep in mind that IT is a cost center – more and more organizations will seek “computing but not computers” as a solution, with the anytime/anywhere access model central to mobility a key element in essentially all solutions. The challenge will be in maintaining control over the I in IT, which is on the other hand a profit center of always-increasing importance. The supplier, large or small, that produces the products and services that maximize the customer’s return on information will quickly establish – or maintain – its leadership in the IT industry. IBM once was the mainframe company, HP sold printers, Oracle reached the top of the heap in databases, and Cisco was the router company. All of this remains true, but today represents only tiny pieces of what all of these firms are becoming – far-reaching integrators who will (with a few other competitors) in fact define IT going forward.
A pleasant holiday weekend to all!
