Cisco (News - Alert) claims that their Cisco Motion has a unique ability to transform the way companies use and manage IT resources. Along with an application called Cisco 3300 Series Mobility Services Engine (MSE), they have released Motion.

 

This new mobile and wireless technology is specifically planned to manage devices and applications across both wireless and wired networks. The Mobility Services Engine has the ability to work seamlessly with the Cisco wireless gear.

 

Cisco hardware, software, and service offerings are used to create the Internet solutions that make networks possible-providing easy access to information anywhere, anytime.

 

Cisco claims that Motion Strategy is a step ahead than the rest of the competition in unifying wired and wireless networks and running apps across them. The problems of disparate wired and wireless management will grow and companies will look into the option of pervasive WLANs once the 802.11n standard gets ratified later this year or early next year. Cisco hopes the IT groups will see Motion as helping corral devices while providing a smoother upgrade path to 11n, as they say that their new product includes a client manager designed to give IT greater control over the myriad types of mobile devices that employees carry. Deploying, securing, and managing these has become a pressing problem.

 

The planned strategy requires a lot of effort, which means it has to enter into partnerships with other companies as well. They had already announced a line up of partners that included Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Nokia (News - Alert), and Oracle, but notably excluded Microsoft, Palm, Research In Motion, and Symbian, and has stated they are working aggressively to bring in additional device manufacturers.

 

Mobile devices and apps can no longer be managed separately from the overall business network architecture. Laptops, smartphones, dual-mode devices that run over cellular or Wi-Fi networks are all basic in the enterprise workflow just like the desktop PC. Cisco claims that for this purpose they have relocated the mobile middleware, the software that collects and stores data on individual clients and the apps they run, in the network.   

 

But analysts say allowing third-party developers to create apps to run across multiple networks will not rope in the leading handset makers. For now, the Motion system is, essentially, a way to manage Cisco wired and WLAN gear and Nokia handsets from one pane. Cisco can see it as a big step, but not the kind of transformations it had desired.

They also say that MSE will create an underlying platform that could give the networking company an even bigger chunk of customers' IT budgets even with Cisco’s dominant market share, and only Cisco has the networking muscle, engineering chops, and marketing clout to really pull together wired and wireless networks in a way that serves businesses.