Cisco Sees Two Major Trends That Are Empowering K-12 Education
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Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO), the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate, is seeing significant trends in the world of K-12 education. More and more schools are viewing technology as a strategic part of education.
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Internet hardware giant Cisco Systems is said to be preparing to launch a new family of routers that can manage both voice and data applications.
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Attendees at this year&#146;s PowerSchool University ramped up their student information system skills with the new PowerSchool 4.0 and augmented their development activities through peer networking. [Aug 3]
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(InfoWorld) - Cisco executives speaking at the ongoing Security Standard Conference claim that the networking giant hasn't sapped innovation in the security companies it has acquired in its efforts to add to its own expanse of IT systems-defense products, while some customers clearly feel otherwise. Taking the stage at the conference in Chicago on Monday to participate in a panel on Cisco's vision for warding off emerging threats and spam, the company's top security executives, and former IronPort Chief Executive Scott Weiss, defended the firm's growth-via-acquisition strategy. Cisco finalized its $830 million buyout of IronPort in June -- only the latest in a long string of such security acquisitions. The company has already begun blending the messaging and malware filtering gateway specialist's technologies into its firewalls, which the executives claim has created a new capability to provide customers with "wide packet inspection," an approach that adds reputation-based anti-attack capabilities to the systems' existing virus and spam detection abilities. Such integration work illustrates the fact that Cisco is improving the ability of its customers to defend their networks from attack and that the firm is serious about innovation and not just attempting to grow its revenues or boost sales of its networking gear by snapping-up other security vendors, Weiss told the assembled audience. Asked by a conference attendee whether major platform providers like Cisco, Microsoft, and IBM will continue to swallow smaller security companies, along with industry giants like Symantec, and how that will impact the availability of the cutting-edge technologies often developed by independent vendors, Weiss said that more consolidation is likely inevitable. Yet he also acknowledged that some niche players will continue to do well on their own. "All the [venture capital] firms that are into small security companies will likely make out like bandits, and there will be a scrum to get the good stuff," said Weiss, who is still heading up IronPort inside Cisco. "Bigger companies will have to decide whether to build, buy, or partner." Weiss highlighted Webroot, the anti-spyware software company that industry watchers have long tabbed for acquisition based on its specialized focus -- and which continues to defy those predictions and grow on its own -- as an example of the type of vendor that will be able to compete in a world where security is being driven further into other broadly-distributed IT platforms, such as Cisco's ubiquitous networking gear. "I think we'll continue to see new Webroots pop-up that can help deal with new threats," he said. "The issue for these companies is how broad is their platform and how to carve a significant portion of the infrastructure out; they have to ask themselves if their technology is broad enough to support a large, profitable company." Along with the benefits of melding together complimentary technologies, such as gateway filtering tools and firewalls, Weiss claims that customers are seeking integrated technologies from single vendors and increasingly looking for "one throat to choke" when selecting security tools. "Users of these technologies want products that talk to each other and have collaborative interfaces," he said. Customers worry about consolidation However, some existing Cisco customers claim that they are troubled by the continued pace of security industry consolidation. Even if Cisco can add many of the pieces that customers seek, it will likely not be able to provide technologies that are as innovative and effective as those made by independent vendors in some areas, said Waqas Akkawi, senior manager of IT security at Sirva, the moving giant that owns Allied Van Lines, Global Van Lines, and North American Van Lines, among other subsidiaries. Akkawi said that Cisco excels in some areas of security where it has experience, namely in network-based tools, but he noted that even some of those products, such as its IDS (intrusion detection systems) and IPS (intrusion prevention systems), also added via various acquisitions, don't measure up to those made by standalone providers. "Cisco is good at what they do naturally, as with firewalls, routers and switches, but they haven't done a good job on things like IPS and IDS where some other niche companies do a better job," said Akkawi. "In a lot of cases I think customers would be better off if these types of companies partnered instead of doing acquisitions or trying to build functionality into their existing products on their own. Sometimes a niche product that integrates well is going to be better than what these guys are talking about." Akkawi, who is a Cisco-certified IT pro, said that Sirva is constantly considering whether or not to go best-of-breed with independent vendors or buy into integrated security products like those being integrated by platform providers like Cisco's IronPort buyout. "These acquisitions will only work if a platform provider like Cisco can build the acquired technology into things they already do well. In some cases, these types of companies haven't been able to integrate everything they've bought, and we've seen some best-of-breed products go away," he said. "[Sirva] will likely continue to go fifty-fifty in terms of the integrated products we choose to buy, and the others we seek out to get true best-of-breed functionality." Many IT platform providers have moved aggressively in recent years to add security to their portfolios where it fits, as with EMC's buyout of authentication specialists RSA, along with IBM and HP's recent moves to add applications testing capabilities to their software development platforms via acquisition. The nature of the security industry is such that certain functions will be parceled into such widely-used technologies, while other newer tools will likely emerge from independents, said Mick Scully, vice president of product management at Cisco's Security Technology Group. Scully countered that despite any perception of cutting at innovation, Cisco is creating many new technology combinations that customers have responded well to, allowing its overall security business to crest $2 billion in revenues in the firm's fiscal 2006, representing a 25 percent annual growth rate in its overall security business. "There will always be a balance between best-of-breed and integrated security. The beauty of the market is that it is constantly changing at a rapid pace, and we will always see startups who address specific problems," Scully said. "But if you look at an acquisition like IronPort, we've left it almost entirely intact, run by the same team, even as we push its technologies into other products." Scully also highlighted the fact that Cisco has proven its chops as a security innovator, such as in creating the burgeoning market for NAC device authentication systems. He said that Cisco itself views its acquisitions as fifty-fifty propositions, looking for as many opportunities to continue to innovate the technologies its buys as it seeks opportunities to fold them into its other product lines. "It's an interesting dichotomy, I sort of see what these customers are saying, but we also believe that our standalone products, such as our NAC appliances, are already best-of-breed," Scully said. "As niche security markets become mature, merchant markets, we are going to look to get into those markets where we fit in; but we're also doing a lot of organic product development on our own, and we feel that we can offer best-of-breed capabilities in the security markets we compete in."
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âWhen we started to look at how to provide a quality education for our students, what became very clear was that the future is digital,â says Carl Rose, executive director of the Association of Alaska School Boards (AASB). âWe needed to ensure that our kids not only had the skill-sets required by the state, but also had the digital literacy capability to use those skills. Thatâs when the concept of 1 to 1 learning began to make sense.â And today, the MacBook, iLife, iWork, and Apple Professional Development are helping the AASB bring its 1 to 1 learning initiative to fruition.
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A technology known as an audience response system is spreading to public and private schools across the country.
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Business: 27 October 2004, Wednesday. A set of two new courses in network security and wireless networks will extend the academic program of Cisco Systems in Bulgaria.
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Cisco's new digital media system -- unveiled this week -- is already winning praise from one early adopter, a university in London that is using it to provide students with access to rich media.
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BEIJING -- John Chambers, the chief executive officer (CEO) and president of Cisco Systems Inc., doesn't care when economists think China is going to become the world's largest economy. He's just thinking about what needs to be done for Cisco to tap into that market.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates outlined on Wednesday a vision of education in which students worldwide use high-speed Internet connections and curriculums that draw on online resources such as Wikipedia to become more globally competitive. "We are now on the verge of something where technology will make a difference," Gates said in an address before the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, Scotland. Advances in hardware, software, and connectivity and are enabling a "user-centric" focus for technology, letting people access information over vast distances inexpensively, Gates said. The address by Gates concluded the two-day Government Leaders Forum, an annual Microsoft-sponsored conference attended by government leaders throughout Europe. The delegates addressed education issues and how Europe can become more competitive through the use of IT. Gordon Brown, the U.K.'s chancellor of the exchequer who oversees financial matters, warned in a speech before Gates' address that the number of jobs that require no skills in the country will drop from 3.4 million today to only 600,000 by 2020. Those who donât have access to education programs and acquire IT skills are "at risk of being unemployed over the next decade." "We cannot afford to ignore the potential of any child," Brown said. Microsoft is backing several educational programs aimed at integrating technologies into classrooms that some young people may already be encountering outside of school. Teachers may have trouble keeping up with students who are already using devices such as the Xbox Live gaming system at their homes, Gates said. "When they [students] come back into the classroom and there's a chalkboard there, that teacher has a hard time living up to the level of drama and richness," he said. Gates announced that Microsoft will expand the company's Innovative Schools initiative, which looks at ways to better integrate technology and learning, to an additional 12 countries: Ireland, the U.K., France, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Qatar, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Chile and Hong Kong. Microsoft has undertaken a variety of projects as part of the program. In Philadelphia, the company joined the city's school district and built a 750-student high school -- called a School of the Future -- that focuses on how technology can improve student performance. It opened in September 2006. The company provided technical guidance, which included the building of a secure Web portal for parents and students for access to assignments, class schedules and grades. In the U.K., Microsoft backs the Building Schools for the Future program, a Â£40 billion ($78 billion) government program to revamp secondary education. The company assists local authorities on ways to integrate technology into education. In Taipei, students at Zhong Lun High School have improved their acceptance rate from 36 percent to 50 percent since it became a School of the Future two years ago, Microsoft said. The company also helped with a distance education facility for teachers, where they can design and publish e-learning material. At the start of his address, Gates spoke of Andrew Carnegie, the Scottish-American steel magnate who later used his wealth to fund libraries and educational institutions. Next year, Gates will step down as Microsoft's chairman to focus on the philanthropy through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which focuses on global health and development issues. Gates recalled one of Carnegie's statements: "He who dies rich, dies disgraced." "Iâm working on avoiding that, but it's a high responsibility," Gates said to laughs.
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Dr. Badr Al-Badr, General Manager, Cisco Saudi Arabia, said that the SR 1 billion investment initiative Cisco announced last April puts higher education and technical training at the heart of the company's investment drive in Saudi Arabia.
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Cisco(R) (NASDAQ: CSCO) today announced enhancements to the Cisco Career Certifications CCDA(R) associate-level design certification curriculum.
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Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO), the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate, reported its second quarter results for the period ended January 27, 2007.
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(InfoWorld) - When Cisco meets analysts Wednesday at an annual conference about its business outlook, the dominant networking player will bring a good financial record and an even more impressive forecast. Rapidly expanding beyond its traditional routing and switching businesses into voice, video, wireless, and other categories,Â the company now sees gold in collaboration using Web 2.0 technologies. Last month, when it reported results for its fourth quarter and 2007 fiscal year, Cisco upped its forecast for quarterly revenue growth, year over year, to between 12 percent and 17 percent on average. That prediction is likely to be a hot topic at the conference, taking place at Cisco's San Jose, California, headquarters. That's impressive for a company that's anything but a startup with a market capitalization of about $200 billion and annual revenue of nearly $35 billion. Even Microsoft's quarterly revenue hasn't consistently been growing that fast in recent years. The new forecast is a jump up from a previous standing estimate of 10 percent to 15 percent that was controversial when first made a few years ago. Analysts credit smart moves and generally good execution in entering new technology areas as well as strength in its core markets for the company's ongoing success. Real-time communications of all kinds, including voice, data, social networking, and a form of high-quality videoconferencing Cisco calls Telepresence, will drive continued growth, Chairman and CEO John Chambers said last month. The company has aggressively acquired to capture new markets,Â buying video infrastructure vendor Scientific-AtlantaÂ last year andÂ online collaboration service WebExÂ earlier this year, in addition to many smaller players. But its followup is just as important, according to Brian Riggs of Current Analysis, who specializes in communications. Cisco doggedly builds on the products it acquires and modifies its lineup to meet customer demands as it did with its Smart Business Communications System for small businesses earlier this year, Riggs said. Cisco also seems to have a smarter approach to developing markets than do other first-world tech companies, said Yankee Group analyst Zeus Kerravala. Starting at the top with heads of state and convincing governments of the value of Cisco's technology, the company sells into poorer countries without eroding its profit margin, he said. Threats still loom, however. Microsoft is getting ready to take on Cisco's unified communications architecture with Office Communications Server 2007 despite the two companies' pledge last month to work together. Hewlett-Packard's well-priced ProCurve products are gaining in enterprise LANs, F5 Networks could threaten Cisco in data centers, and there's a danger of Cisco's infrastructure gear becoming a commodity unless the company keeps innovating, Kerravala said. However, Chambers's rhetoric and Cisco's results also say something about the industry as a whole, he said. Sales of HP and Foundry Networks's enterprise products are also growing in a cycle that Kerravala attributes to upgrading networks that were built in advance of Y2K. "At first glance, you can say he's being overly optimistic, but on the other hand, he's rarely wrong," Kerravala said.
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By Dawn Marks, The Daily Oklahoman  Jun. 9--EDMOND -- The Edmond school system's technology outline for the next five years calls for putting more equipment in students' and teachers' hands.
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SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Cisco Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq:CSCO - News) announced today the availability of a suite of new CiscoÂ® CatalystÂ® switching products and services specifically designed and priced for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).
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Cisco Systems Inc. CSCO.O on   Wednesday said it has turned the corner on its routers business   and saw growing opportunities to expand its consumer strategy   with new video technologies.