August 23, 2005

By Jenny Carless, News@Cisco

"Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships." Michael Jordan, one of the best players in the history of American basketball, has been quoted as saying this about sports. But he could just as easily have been talking about the business world.

Cisco Systems and Intel Corporation clearly recognize the value of teamwork, and their collaborations are bringing the benefits of business class wireless and security technologies to customers around the globe.

The two industry leaders are expanding their existing strategic alliance to bring enhanced wireless performance and more security to the enterprise. Together, the two will deliver more reliable wireless local area networks (WLANs) and higher quality services, and enterprises everywhere will be able to use Intel-based computers and Cisco networks as a combined defense against security threats.

Business Class Wireless Suite

The mission of the strategic alliance is to drive the convergence of computing and network communications. As industry leaders in WLAN infrastructure and mobile clients, respectively, Cisco and Intel combine their strengths of innovation, technology leadership, reliability and trust for an unparalleled opportunity to fuel growth for consumers, enterprises and nations - transforming the way people work, live, play and learn.

"Cisco and Intel combine their leadership strengths with the Internet, providing expertise on complementary ends of the spectrum. We build and make it operate reliably, while Intel provides key technologies powering PCs and servers that connect to the Internet," explains Steve Steinhilber, vice president of Strategic Alliances at Cisco. "Strengthening that connection helps enable organizations worldwide to transform the way they conduct business on the Internet and become more productive."

"There are significant synergies between Intel and Cisco," adds John Davies, vice president, Sales and Marketing Group at Intel. "We recognized early on that we could work together to add value for our customers."

The alliance offers important benefits to both companies.

"Working closely with Intel represents an opportunity to make the client work more seamlessly with the network," explains Steinhilber. "Further, from a marketing perspective, Intel has a strong ability to facilitate ecosystems. Market development is part of its corporate DNA. Intel identifies pilot opportunities and works with Cisco and other leaders to deliver unified technologies to businesses, resulting in greater productivity, reliability and manageability."

For Intel, the scope of the relationship separates this alliance from others. "We're truly a technology alliance. We're driving industry standards, helping to ensure that the client works well with the network for mobility," says Davies. "And with Cisco, which is known for security in the network, we can make significant strides towards protecting the enterprise against malicious attacks."

Digital Communities

An alliance between these two companies gives customers confidence that they have the latest, standards-based technology from industry leaders they can trust.

"They'll have a more reliable, secure and unified wired/wireless experience," says Steinhilber. "Their laptops and WLAN access points (APs) will work when they need them, and they'll be able to trust that their enterprise is more secure."

Municipalities around the world are using wireless technologies to enhance competitiveness, government efficiency and quality of life for their citizens. Intel's "Digital Communities" initiative, announced August 18, will help cities use a wireless infrastructure to expand and improve services. Through this program, Intel, Cisco and other companies are helping communities design, develop and deploy applications that range from automating mobile workers such as meter readers to developing new ways of ensuring the safety of first responders by remotely monitoring vehicle location.

For example, with help from Cisco, Intel and other technology leaders, the City of Cleveland, Ohio is using WLAN technology to transform its paper-based permitting and inspection workflow to a new online, wireless-based electronic process. The deployment demonstrates the interoperability of Intel® Centrino^TM mobile technology based wireless clients working seamlessly over a Cisco WLAN infrastructure.

"With Cisco's proven wireless technology, coupled with Intel's advanced mobile technology and IBM's world-class integration services, we are helping to reduce cycle times and costs associated with the inspection and permitting process and improve our services to the community," says Chris Ronayne, chief of staff and chief development officer for the City of Cleveland.

The benefits of mobile wireless computing are wide-ranging - from improved productivity to rapid return on investment. London's City of Westminster and Jerusalem, Israel are among the other municipalities that, with the help of Cisco, Intel and others, are benefiting from these innovative technologies.

A Higher Level of Security

Today, Intel and Cisco also announced a further broadening of their strategic alliance in security: Intel is joining the Cisco Network Admission Control (NAC) partner program and Cisco is joining the Intel Active Management Technology (Intel ® AMT) program.

Intel is the first silicon manufacturer to join the Cisco NAC partner program, an industry-wide effort that uses the network infrastructure to enforce security policy compliance on all devices seeking access to network computing resources, thereby limiting damage from viruses and worms. Likewise, Cisco is the first networking provider to join the Intel® AMT partner program. (Intel® AMT allows technicians to detect a managed asset, such as a PC, and change its configuration remotely.) Intel® AMT is part of Intel's Digital Office initiative providing capabilities to make new levels of IT manageability and security possible.

The two companies bring a new usage model whereby Cisco NAC interoperates with Intel® AMT to help enable enterprises to trust and manage endpoints by defending against security threats and improving remediation at the hardware level. This effort is designed to provide a higher level of security for the network and client devices.

"NAC and Intel® AMT working together means we are better able to identify and intercept security threats early on, before they get to the network; we can stop them at the desktop," says Davies.

With industry-leading teamwork and intelligence, the Cisco Intel alliance is helping enable companies to grow, transform and be more productive. As trusted innovators, the two companies are optimizing today's technology and accelerating what will become tomorrow's standards.

For more information, visit: http://www.ciscointelalliance.com.

Jenny Carless is a freelance writer located in Santa Cruz, CA.