Cisco Intros Branch Solution Amid Restructuring, Financial News: Page 2 of 2

Bass Pro Shops, which has 56 retail stores in the United States and Canada, states that it looked to the new Flex controller to reduce costs by eliminating the need for a controller at each store to manage the wireless networks, while also reducing the amount of interaction needed by store personnel. "At Bass Pro Shops, we were looking to centralize the management of wireless connections in our corporate headquarters, distribution facility and our retail stores, which each rely on wireless connectivity for handheld scanners, phones and printers," says Steve Marshall, director of IT services, Bass Pro Shops.

The new product announcements support Cisco's ongoing recognition that the control point for IT is no longer end devices, and that IT has to move security and policies from user devices to ports (wireless, remote and wired), says Andre Kindness, senior analyst, Forrester Research: "Smartphones, tablets and millennium users are forcing this to happen. It is good Cisco is combining management of devices and users, whether wired or wireless, under one umbrella. It's the right direction, but HP's ProCurve line has had that capability with ProCurve Manager and Identity Driven Manager for a few years."

See more on this topic by subscribing to Network Computing Pro Reports Strategy: Unified Computing Stack Wars (subscription required).