Cisco Systems Inc introduced data-analytics software packages that are designed to help retailers and other large companies make better use of Web-connected devices, from smartphones to connected bathroom scales.
The world’s largest network-equipment maker unveiled eight sets of programs for different industries and uses, it said in a statement yesterday.
One package could be used by sports venues to shift concession workers to the stands with the longest lines, and another can help retailers make smarter decisions about where to display products.
Cisco has said the trend toward connectivity, which it calls the Internet of Everything, will unleash US$19 trillion in new profits and cost savings globally in the next decade.
Chief executive officer John Chambers predicted that US$7.3 trillion of that would come via analytics software that makes sense of the vast amounts of data that will flow to data centers from personal computers, mobile phones and sensors embedded in all kinds of objects, from roads to light fixtures to factory equipment.
“There is a massive shift in the market where the remote device at the edge is quickly becoming an incredibly strategic tool to share and collect data, enable more informed decisionmaking and deliver the best customer experience possible,” senior vice president of Cisco services Edzard Overbeek said in the statement. “If customers don’t have the right analytics solutions in place to make sense of it, that data is useless.”
Cisco is focusing on real-time information analysis. While a market for centralized big-data warehouses has emerged in recent years, Cisco’s software will let some data be analyzed close to where it is generated. That way, an energy company would not need to continually send huge amounts of information on the performance of oilfield equipment over long distances — instead, the program would only alert headquarters if there is an imminent problem, for example, Overbeek said in a presentation.
The analytics push could help bolster growth in Cisco’s services business, which grew to 23 percent of revenue last year from 16 percent in 2007.
The San Jose, California-based company has been taking steps to boost sales of software and services, seeking to reduce its reliance on demand for proprietary hardware such as routers and set-top boxes.
Profit margins on these products are projected to narrow in coming years, as customers switch to networks built on less complicated equipment running more sophisticated software.
“This is about Cisco moving more into software as a way to deliver value, rather than just through its hardware,” Forrester Research Inc analyst Frank Gillett said.
The data-analytics field has become increasingly crowded. Earlier this week, International Business Machines Corp and Apple Inc rolled out their partnership’s first business applications to help corporate customers use Apple products to communicate and organize more efficiently.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day