Cisco extends CCX to Wi-Fi location tags

Wireless in the Enterprise This newsletter is sponsored by Siemens Tired of Being Locked Into Proprietary Solutions? Stop the cycle of being locked into a proprietary solutions and service contracts. Optimize your organization's processes - and profits - with an open communications infrastructure. Discover how you can streamline your organization with an open, flexible communications and collaboration with "Smooth Your Transition to an Open Communications Platform". Network World's Wireless in the Enterprise Newsletter, 05/21/07 Cisco extends CCX to Wi-Fi location tags By Joanie Wexler At the Interop trade show in Las Vegas this week, most wireless LAN vendors will discuss their 802.11n readiness and debate the latest evolution in Wi-Fi architectures. Industry heavyweight Cisco, however, will focus its attention elsewhere. The company intends to roll out wireless bundles for the healthcare, retail and energy industries. The solutions, to be available immediately, unite new Wi-Fi Cisco Compatible Extensions (CCX) for Tags, Cisco’s WLAN infrastructure, its wireless location appliance and its IP telephony products with products from third parties. CCX for Tags allows enterprises with location-tracking requirements to mix and match different vendors’ Wi-Fi tags with Cisco’s location appliance and WLANs, says Lynn Lucas, director of mobility services at Cisco. The heterogeneous Wi-Fi tagging is important, because sensors in different tags track and monitor different things, such as temperature, vibration level and humidity. A given organization might wish to use a mix of tags and applications to monitor a variety of conditions and thresholds in the healthcare and energy industries, for example. Make the most of your Mobile Gear Download our Free Executive Guide and learn how Network IT professionals are getting the most out of their mobile devices and improving mobile security. You'll also get the scoop on upcoming mobile tools and technologies and how they may impact your enterprise. Click Here to download today! Cisco’s package for healthcare providers uses sensors mounted at check points, such as doorways, to track which CCX-tagged items and people have passed through them and at what time. This approach deterministically calculates where biomedical equipment, hospital beds, newborn babies and other items and people are and is more accurate than today’s triangulation/trilateration tracking technologies, says Lucas. In addition to location, organizations can also track the status and condition of devices — such as whether they have been sterilized, Lucas explains. For retailers, Cisco is mounting wireless terminals, which integrate with Cisco WLANs and IP telephony environments, to shopping carts. Shoppers can use the carts to scan products for price checks or to uncover the aisle in which the Marshmallow Fluff is hiding. The retailer can also use the smart carts to track merchandising trends and push relevant ads and promotions to users based on where they happen to be in the store, explains Lucas. Side note: The carts themselves might become assets to be tracked (like hospital beds and equipment), as retailers now have more to lose if expensive, computer-enabled shopping carts disappear from the parking lot. The retail solution also adds push-to-talk (PTT) capabilities to the Cisco 7921G Wi-Fi phone using software from Berbee Software, a company that develops applications for Cisco IP telephony environments.   What do you think? Post a comment on this newsletter

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Contact the author: Joanie Wexler is an independent networking technology writer/editor in California's Silicon Valley who has spent most of her career analyzing trends and news in the computer networking industry. She welcomes your comments on the articles published in this newsletter, as well as your ideas for future article topics. Reach her at joanie@jwexler.com. This newsletter is sponsored by Siemens Tired of Being Locked Into Proprietary Solutions? Stop the cycle of being locked into a proprietary solutions and service contracts. Optimize your organization's processes - and profits - with an open communications infrastructure. Discover how you can streamline your organization with an open, flexible communications and collaboration with "Smooth Your Transition to an Open Communications Platform". ARCHIVE Archive of the Wireless in the Enterprise Newsletter. BONUS FEATURE IT PRODUCT RESEARCH AT YOUR FINGERTIPS Get detailed information on thousands of products, conduct side-by-side comparisons and read product test and review results with Network World’s IT Buyer’s Guides. Find the best solution faster than ever with over 100 distinct categories across the security, storage, management, wireless, infrastructure and convergence markets. Click here for details. PRINT SUBSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE You've got the technology snapshot of your choice delivered to your inbox each day. Extend your knowledge with a print subscription to the Network World newsweekly, Apply here today. International subscribers, click here. SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES To subscribe or unsubscribe to any Network World newsletter, change your e-mail address or contact us, click here. This message was sent to: networking.world@gmail.com. Please use this address when modifying your subscription. Advertising information: Write to Associate Publisher Online Susan Cardoza Network World, Inc., 118 Turnpike Road, Southborough, MA 01772 Copyright Network World, Inc., 2007