What Does It All Mean?
Cisco has been up-front about its plans to create a highly sustainable, scalable off-premise infrastructure solution. It seems to me that they are all in on recurring revenue, and plan to provide networking-as-a-service as a means to move to a subscription-based infrastructure offering. The acquisitions of Springpath and Viptela highlight the company’s motives in this space.
However, the MindMeld and BroadSoft acquisitions prove that the company is also strengthening its unified communications portfolio and moving it to a more cloud-based system as well. That MindMeld involves communications AI and as well as machine learning shows that Cisco believes what other major players in the space (Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple) also believe – the future in communications is utilizing machine learning in order to make unified communications between humans easier, more accessible, and with more information about how they work. The AppDynamics acquisition highlights something similar – using data to create Business Intelligence and inform customers how to function better with real stats.
So here is the picture these acquisitions paint, in my eyes. Cisco will provide you with the infrastructure and the data center. They’ll provide you with a unified communications platform that utilizes this infrastructure, and an AI assistant that competes with those you know well in Siri and Cortana. Finally, Cisco will be able to visualize actionable data in order to show you, the customer, how well all of its systems are working for you and how you can improve even further.
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