In the fast-paced world of technology, understanding the strategic moves and future prospects of industry giants is essential.

During this week’s Cisco Live event, a wealth of insights into Cisco Systems Inc.’s future strategies were revealed through keynote presentations. The discussions following these presentations offered intriguing perspectives about the event and the industry’s landscape.

“Cisco is in the process of moving from a product culture to a platform culture, from ‘push the next feature to let the ecosystem and the customers guide us as to what features we want to enable on the platform,’” said industry analyst Dave Vellante (pictured, left). “That’s a different mindset, different thinking.”

Vellante and co-analyst John Furrier (right) provided detailed analysis at Cisco Live, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed insights into the tech giant’s strategies, potential growth and the technology trends shaping the future of the industry.

Cisco’s opportunities and challenges in an AI-powered future

During today’s event keynote, Cisco presented an overview of the company’s vision for an AI-driven future. There were several salient points that emerged from the discussion. In particular, Jonathan Davidson, Cisco’s executive vice president and general manager of networking, laid out the importance of unified experiences and building bridges, according to Furrier.

“Clearly, they’re going for this simplicity theme, as we reported yesterday,” he said. “But this idea of unification — not new to Cisco; they used to have unified as part of their compute model. Here they’re thinking bigger — unified platforms.”

Despite the excitement around AI and how Cisco is using AI in the realm of hybrid work, Vellante felt the keynote lacked coverage of the “next big thing” that could potentially boost Cisco’s value “five x” over the next decade. While he acknowledged the company’s steady execution and continuous growth, he’s still waiting to see Cisco’s next moves that could lead to a radical breakthrough.

“I saw some very cool things, but I don’t think I saw the next big thing,” he said. “My takeaway from today was that Cisco is going to continue to execute, they’re going to continue to grow, they’re going to continue to do well and they’re going to make solid bets that will lead to good … incremental improvements. I don’t see anything radical in there. I think they’re trying to figure that out.”

Hybrid work, security and platformization

One of the major themes of the keynote was hybrid work, with Cisco’s leadership team laying out the roadmap for integrating AI into hybrid work models. TheCUBE’s analysts were particularly struck by the emphasis on audio and video intelligence.

“If you don’t have good sound, you don’t have any kind of interaction,” Vellante said. “The second was video intelligence, which I thought was very interesting.”

The potential of natural language understanding for real-time translations and analytics for insights was also a key theme during the keynote.

In an increasingly interconnected world, where our physical and digital lives have become inseparable, the need for an integrated approach to security is essential. This point was brought to light during the keynote when the NFL’s chief security officer announced, “physical and cybersecurity is converged,” according to Furrier.

The convergence of physical and cybersecurity represents a significant shift in how the enterprise approaches security. Rather than seeing physical and cybersecurity as separate entities, this new approach combines the two, necessitating a comprehensive strategy to ensure overall safety. This integrated model will become the “new normal” for organizations, replacing the previous model of point solutions, according to Furrier.

This critical observation underscores a fundamental change in the security market landscape and highlights the need for companies like Cisco to adjust their strategies accordingly.

Looking forward, it’s clear that Cisco sees significant opportunities in AI, hybrid work models and the convergence of physical and cybersecurity. However, to leverage these opportunities fully, it must navigate the shift from being a product-based company to becoming a platform-focused one, according to Vellante and Furrier. This transition may well determine Cisco’s future trajectory in the evolving tech landscape.

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Cisco Live:

Photo: SiliconANGLE