Today, Cisco is announcing Enterprise TV, a YouTube-like video posting and viewing service aimed at enterprises. It is also announcing a security camera that extends an existing line of "physical security" and video surveillance products.
Marthin De Beer, senior vice president for emerging technologies, said in an interview that the video product in a recognition of how web video is making the transition from the consumer market to the enterprise. In January, consumers watched 250 billion minutes of video.
The Enterprise TV platform will make it easier for companies to do everything related to video: creating it, capturing it, and playing it. Employees can capture video of meetings or training programs and upload it immediately to their enterprise networks, where employees can watch it on demand.
"Think of it as YouTube for business," De Beer said.
Enterprises have been slower than consumers to pick up on video technologies such as YouTube, partly out of concern for bandwidth costs, a lack of compelling applications, and because the picture quality is often poor. For enterprises, the purchasing process is slower and so Cisco believes that integrating Enterprise TV with a host of enterprise applications will help its acceptance.
Cisco has also created a new generation of security cameras that are integrated with its ISR routers for banks and other highly secure places. With the integration, the cameras can stream video through the routers so that the video can be stored and watched anywhere.
De Beer said that the emerging technology businesses cover four areas including telepresence (high-end video conferencing), digital media, and physical security/video surveillance. The fourth area will be unveiled soon but is still secret. All of those have the potential of being billion-dollar businesses some day, he said. Cisco has a ton of competitors, such as Sony and Panasonic, in new markets such as video surveillance. More focused competitors include Axis and Pelco. But De Beer said that the company's broad solutions should help it be more competitive.
"We've built the technology to create the world's largest networks," De Beer said. "Now we're building systems on top of the platforms."
