Cisco Systems is getting into the security surveillance market with the acquisition of a small company called SyPixx Networks.
The networking giant is paying $51 million in cash and options for SyPixx, which has developed software and hardware products that allow existing analog video systems to operate as part of a digital IP network.
Most of the video systems used today are analog, which limits where and how video can be viewed. Digitizing video using the SyPixx technology will make video accessible at any time from any place, so watchers can respond to, investigate and resolve incidents as they happen. That will help companies install and control new security applications and make live and recorded video more valuable to customers, Cisco said.
"If you can digitize all video, you can record it, timestamp it and instantaneously get access to video across the IP network much more efficiently than having to send an actual tape," said Marthin De Beer, a vice president in Cisco's Emerging Market Technologies Group. "It also lets people coordinating a disaster halfway across the country to get live video feeds from cameras connected to an IP network, so they can see what's happening."
In addition, it makes sense for businesses that have already embarked on consolidating their networks to decide to carry all of their corporate data and voice traffic over an IP network. Cisco also provides storage area networking gear, which is essential for customers who must store all the video.
The company said it plans to keep on all of SyPixx's 27 employees. Today, those workers are spread between two locations in Waterbury, Conn., and Carlsbad, Calif. When the acquisition closes, which is expected to happen by the end of April, Cisco says it plans to relocate the employees on the East Coast to the Carlsbad facility.
Having spent hours viewing the congressional hearings on China and the Internet, with Cisco rep on one of the panels, and evidence of Cisco's active working with the Chinese Gov. to spy on its own people, I wonder if they will get the 'benefit' of this tool as well.
Google creates an animated doodle that features a boy, a girl, Google's search engine, and a jump rope. But might there be darker, more analytical, more troubling interpretations to this tale?
The Silicon Valley online payments startup grew by 1,000 percent last year and is hopeful it can repeat that level of growth this year. To do that, it's had to move away from its early friends-and-family roots and embrace small businesses.
Chamtech's spray-on antenna uses a nano material to provide a low-power boost to antenna range. The wireless-in-a-can product may some day bring an end to unsightly cell towers.
EnerG2 opens a plant to make an engineered carbon that will improve performance of energy storage devices and make storage for start-stop hybrid cars less expensive.
