As usual, Cisco Systems Inc.‘s annual user conference, Cisco Live EMEA in Amsterdam, serves as a platform for the networking giant to release the latest innovations across many of its product lines. Although this event is considerably smaller than the U.S. Cisco Live, it’s important for the company as Europe, the Middle East and Africa is a highly diverse region spread out across 120 countries.
The rise of hybrid work and distributed applications has created a problem that’s not so new but has been exacerbated. On-premises security has been the de facto deployment model for decades, but as businesses have become more distributed, on-premises have struggled to meet security demands. The pandemic-induced hybrid work model underscores the difficulty of putting corporate-grade security wherever a user is.
It was an interesting year for the world’s largest networking vendor. Cisco Systems Inc. put up record revenue and earnings despite a highly volatile macro environment affected by wars, social issues, inflation, rising interest rates and the like. The company also made the biggest acquisition in its history in September when it announced the purchase of Splunk.
Posting on LinkedIn last week, Charlie Bell, executive vice president of security at Microsoft Corp., last week announced a shakeup of its security organization in the wake of a Chinese government-backed hack that resulted in the theft of U.S. government emails.
Cisco Systems Inc. is holding the Asia-Pacific, Japan and China version of Cisco Live this week in Melbourne, Australia, where the highlight was the security news, as the company gave its cyber portfolio a shot of artificial intelligence. Historically, Cisco and security have had somewhat of an on-again, off-again relationship – like Cardi B and Offset.