As Cisco Live 2012 came to a conclusion, a couple of my fellow CommScope exhibitors and attendees—Steve Schmerber and Jennifer Roback—had a bit of time to sit back and reflect on some of the highlights we saw at the show. Steve made the observation that the trend from the physical world to the virtual world has evolved again to the cloud, creating entirely new companies and encouraging some innovation from the existing players. Some snippets of their conversation and observations:
Roback: The “World of Solutions” trade show floor is so large it’s like a city! The number of vendors and diversity of solutions from training, client devices to network management solutions is amazing.
Schmerber: There are companies here that I’ve never even heard of and I’m not sure what they even do. Walking the floor gives me great ideas on helping to solve customers’ business issues…someone has made an app for that!
Schmerber: Did you notice all the references to anytime - anywhere - any device - any application? This was the theme at the Cisco EnergyWise POD with the tag line of BYOD (bring your own device). It really used to be anytime anywhere but adding the any device and application really opens up the world to so many possibilities.
Roback: Yeah, at the Cisco Cloud Booth they were showcasing applications allowing customers to support any device with the focus on availability and security which clearly is the challenge for IT professionals with the expectation of BYOD…how do you enable your users without endangering your network? As the IT support person you try to balance being the “killer of fun” and opening up the network to anything at huge risk.
Schmerber: Did you see the cool augmented reality trigger display in the Cisco Cloudverse Interactive display? Armed with an iPad and pair of headphones, you walked through a corridor of monitors. As you pointed the iPad at the different pictures (embedded on what appeared to be a barcode) on the various monitors, audio and video would be triggered on the iPad, explaining different benefits of Cisco’s Cloudverse. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could program triggers in your house to give yourself ocean or mountain views from every window in your house? Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase rose colored glasses!
Roback: I liked the self-contained air conditioner integrated with the rack at the Rittal Booth. It allows customer to deploy air where they need it…allowing them to cool only what they need and be more efficient with their energy consumption. These guys are great partners for our pre-terminated cabinet solutions as they seem to be on the cutting edge of new cabinet solutions.
Schmerber: I was overwhelmed by the 40-inch wide cabinet they have to support the Cisco Nexus 7000 solution that has 11 inches baffles on each side to support the side to side air flow.
Cisco Live was a huge success. We saw lots of innovative solutions to address customers’ business issues to allow them to support their organizations and their demands for “Anything with Any device”. I’m ready to go play with Cloudverse….I’m going to figure out how to make it look like I live in one of those huts over the water in Tahiti!
Did you attend Cisco Live 2012? What impressed you at the show?
