The Cisco ecosystem

Partially in response to moves by traditional telecom vendor powerhouses, Cisco Systems has announced a program that enables software vendors to create products enhanced for Cisco Powered Networks.

Through the New World Ecosystem, an "integrated solution program," Cisco-selected vendor partners can develop open standard enhancements designed for packet technologies, said Mordechai Fester, senior manager of the New World Ecosystem program.

"It's essentially an open partner program composed of a group of industry affiliates to create a whole range of profitable solutions for service providers," he said. Members write to Cisco application programming interfaces, creating a vertically integrated structure.

To date, Cisco's Ecosystem consists of 100 member vendors in packet telephony applications, e-business, operations/billing support systems, system integration and internetworking technologies (cable, digital subscriber line, optical and wireless). Participants include Andersen Consulting, Ciena, Microsoft, NetSpeak, Portal Software, Tibco Software and Telcordia Technologies (formerly Bellcore).

"It's the right ecosystem of partners to provide the range of solutions to service providers to get time-to-profitability and to develop new services they can rapidly deploy," Fester said. Next week, 25 vendors will exhibit in Cisco's partner pavilion at Supercomm. "We'll be highlighting interoperability and the range of different kinds of solutions we can offer to service providers," he said.

Cisco's goal is to appeal to service providers with legacy networks. "This will help them in the migration from the circuit world to a packet world," he said. What Cisco doesn't say is that the push to Internet protocol will further entrench its market position.

The idea of migration isn't new, though. Similar strategies have been announced by Lucent Technologies, with its R/Evolutionary portfolio, and Nortel Networks, with Succession. Fester charges that those approaches are too proprietary to succeed.

"It's easy to wave the flag and say you're open, but how many people have developed to your open system?" he asked. "This is our answer to what some of our competitors have announced. One part is the migration, but an even bigger component is that [this] open architecture spurs innovation, it spurs rapid deployment [of new services] and it spurs profitability. We think that open model will accelerate the development of new applications."

Cisco will emphasize interoperability and the range of different kinds of solutions it can offer service providers, he added.

Partners also will gain a valuable thumbs-up from Cisco, which translates into exposure and sales. "It's an important, brilliant concept," said Jim Kwock, vice president of marketing at NetSpeak. "What Cisco is doing is capturing the innovation of the entire industry by allowing vendors to add value to a Cisco Powered Network."

Cisco partners first must prove interoperability with Cisco products, although partner products aren't necessarily interoperable. That might be coming, however.

"The ultimate goal for IP telephony is for everyone to interoperate with anyone," Kwock said. "This is a great first step."

Artel Video Systems will make its debut at Supercomm next week in an effort to reintroduce telcos and other service providers to video applications that carry high margins and can fill large capacity pipes quickly.

While the 3-year-old company's traditional market has focused on cable TV providers and specialized carriers, encroaching competition is forcing telcos of all sizes and shapes to rethink their video strategies, said Dan Poranski, vice president of marketing.

"If you look in any [regional Bell operating company] there's a video services group and it's a puzzling problem," he said. "A single digital television signal requires the equivalent bandwidth of 2400 telephone calls. The movement of video is now going into this new public network."

In Atlanta, the company will introduce the Digilink 8000, an eight-channel video networking device that lets carriers put eight NTSC and 32 audio channels onto a single fiber. Potential applications include high-quality distance learning and telemedicine.

Additionally, the company will preview its GigaLink system, a future extension of its MegaLink products. GigaLink, which is expected to hit the market later this year, allows carriers to multiplex many fast Ethernet video streams and support several high-end corporate applications.

"Video is very much a conundrum to the data world," said Poranski. "In video, especially the high-end, you can't drop a frame because that directly impacts the device on the other end."