Cisco Systems is hoping to put some distance between himself and his rivals with a new technology that was announced this week.
At the fair telecommunications SUPERCOMM 2001 in Atlanta on Tuesday, said Cisco has enhanced its family of Internet routers and developed new software that will enable telecommunications service providers to more easily manage a network built with Cisco hardware . With the software, for example, service providers can offer Web access to clients without sending technicians to your home or business.
Analysts say the new software will save you money and service providers will help Cisco to fend off rivals such as networking are Juniper Networks heels.
As Nortel Networks, Lucent Technologies and Cisco has been battered financially by the economic slowdown and lower spending by companies and service providers. To attract customers, Cisco and its rivals have begun to reduce prices on its products, but companies are also selling the new technology to help service providers generate new revenue.
“What Cisco is doing is covering the space with products with a lot of new features. And they’re going to handle them all with a single system,” said Michael Howard, an analyst at Infonetics Research. “Cisco has become more intelligent about how to build products. It is a more unified set of products.”
Cisco announced on Tuesday a new XML-based add-on for its Internetworking Operating System (IOS) software, which operates the network equipment business.
XML (Extensible Markup Language) is a Web standard for exchanging information that proponents say will reshape the business to business communications. It not only allows customers to easily and cheaply conduct online transactions with their customers and partners, also offers a sound, video and other data on the Web.
Cisco, however, is using XML to link the company’s equipment new and existing networks, so that all can be managed from a central location, the representatives of Cisco, said. As part of the announcement, the company has begun shipping a new device, called the Cisco Intelligence 2100, to help service providers manage their networks.
Before the extension XML, Cisco customers had to manage each Cisco product line separately. “Now we will be able to put it all together in one system,” said Howard.
Cisco also announced on Tuesday five new additions to its family of Internet routers, the technology includes Internet traffic from point to point on a network at high speeds. The high-end routers will help the company to better compete against rival Juniper, which has captured 38 percent of the lucrative market for Cisco and 59 percent.
The new Cisco 12406 Router offers the same performance as other high-end Cisco routers, but is smaller, analysts said. The product is aimed at service providers with limited space. high-end routers sit in the “core” network service providers, where those most affected by Internet traffic during transport.
Cisco also announced a compact version of the Cisco 10000 family of routers, devices used to build networks in the area where the service provider network connection.
The company launched a higher-capacity version of its optical equipment for metropolitan areas, an explosion of market rivals include Nortel, Lucent, Foundry Networks, Extreme Networks and others. Cisco optical devices, called the ONS 15454 features an OC-192 Interface, technology that ship traffic on the Internet 10 gigabits per second.
The networking giant announced two routers for better performance in its 7000 product line, which are designed to help service providers offer Web access to businesses. The new router 7400, for example, can support a variety of connections for high-speed network, including digital subscriber lines (DSL), cable, ISDN and T1 services, Cisco executives said.