Cisco in partnership mode for India unit

In talks with 5 firms for tie-ups on converged building solutions.

Cisco Systems, which has established its first business unit outside the US under its emerging technologies group, is taking the partnership approach to offer solutions for the global market.

While the company is actively considering Wipro Technologies as a key partner in these initiatives, it is expected to identify the other partners soon, sources close to the development said.

Cisco has nine system integrators (SIs) with whom the company has partnership agreement in India to jointly address the global and the Indian markets by developing solutions and services around its Internet Protocol (IP) network.

While a few of these companies, including Datacraft, Cable & Wireless, HP and IBM have been Cisco's global partners in India, the company has a few Indian partners including TCS, HCL Comnet, CMC and Wipro.

"We are engaged with all major SIs in India who are ready to take the relationship to the next level. We have nine SIs in India as partners, and we are talking to five of them at this moment for creating specific technology solutions and take them to the market," said Naresh Wadhwa, president and country manager ""India and SAARC, Cisco Systems.

Cisco is presently in an investment mode to make the business unit come out with solutions targeting opportunities in West Asia, Africa, Latin America and some Asian countries.

The company has identified converged building solutions (CBS) as a key area of focus. These solutions will automate all requirements of a building "" from security to electricity, water and maintenance "" using the IP network.

The converged building solutions aim at combining IT, and building solutions to improve the reach and effectiveness of building IT operations by integrating them into a network infrastructure.

"Our unit in Bangalore is a potential one. The unit has come up after investigation into what new businesses the company could get into. A potential unit for us is converged building solutions," said Guy Tonti, Guy Tonti, Director, Worldwide Technology Practices, Emerging Technologies, Cisco Systems.

According to company sources, the emerging technologies business unit in Bangalore will also work for high-end R&D, and in understanding the potential business for the company.

The company was also looking at engaging the business unit to come out with specific solutions in the real estate sector including SEZs.

"Converged building solutions is just the beginning. We constantly evaluate opportunities with universal appeal. We look at extrapolating that to large SEZs, digital cities and even retail space, as and when convergence happens," said Wadhwa.

Sources said that based on the solutions, Cisco had won two projects including a large SEZ project and one large campus of a non-IT firm in the country, for providing complete building automation solutions.

Ranganath Salgame, former president of Cisco Systems (India & SAARC), heading the business unit, has quit the company. Cisco, according to sources, has found a replacement for Salgame.

On being contacted, a company spokesperson said, "An official announcement to this effect would be made shortly."

The new business unit could fetch the company about $1 billion in revenues annually.