RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – Chuck Robbins’ reorg and refocusing efforts at Cisco have now triggered the end to the tech giant’s high-profile smart cities program.
“We recently decided to stop sales and eventually support [for] the Cisco Kinetic for City product line to align our product investment to evolving market needs and customer requirements,” a company spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal.
Cisco, which has a major presence in RTP, is no longer listed as a member of the Research Triangle Cleantech Cluster, according to its membership directory. Cisco was acknowledged as a new member in 2018 and also had been listed as joining the RTCC in 2013.
The Cisco Kinetic for City product line “promised a budding new market. And the effort, built largely around the company’s Cisco Kinetic for Cities software services, became a high-profile initiative for Chief Executive Chuck Robbins as he tried to transform Cisco from a hardware vendor into a company more closely associated with the lucrative business of selling software services,” the newspaper reported Monday.
Robbins has revamped the company’s management and has refocused efforts to software and services while moving away from traditional hardware products such as routers.
