Eyeing Enterprise IoT, Cisco Completes Jasper Acquisition

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p>Last month, networking giant Cisco announced it was acquiring Jasper Technologies, a Santa Clara, Calif.-based provider of cloud-based Internet of Things (IoT) management services, for $1.4 billion. Today, the companies have closed on the transaction, completing a major part of Cisco’s fledgling IoT business.

Jasper’s software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform provides automated IoT services management, enabling organizations to link their ‘things’ over cellular networks and monetize their deployments. Jasper works with 27 service provider groups and is used by more than 3,500 enterprises, at last count, and integrates with IT solutions from IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce and SAP.

“Jasper’s IoT platform is just the beginning,” said Rowan Trollope, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco’s IoT and Collaboration Technology Group, in a March 22 blog post. “Cisco’s IoT Cloud Business Unit will deliver comprehensive IoT solutions that make it easy for enterprise customers, service providers and ecosystem partners to capitalize on this business transformation.”

Cisco plans to augment Jasper’s platform with new IoT security and analytics capabilities. On the connectivity front, the company is working on adding support for like enterprise Wi-Fi and low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) technologies.

Ultimately, Cisco envisions offering a comprehensive, interoperable IoT service platform portfolio that can help customers quickly launch their own IoT services based initiative. Potential use cases include predictive maintenance for manufacturing plants, asset tracking for commercial fleets and usage-based insurance plans for connected vehicles, according to Cisco.

“The IoT opportunity in front of us right now is enormous and immediate,” said Jahangir Mohammed, founder and CEO of Jasper, in a statement. He has since been made general manager of Cisco’s newly-formed IoT Cloud Business Unit.

Enterprises are flocking to the IoT. Last month, Technavio forecast that the market for industrial IoT solutions will reach nearly $132 billion in 2020. Merchants, eager to engage with today’s mobile and tech-savvy consumers, are expected to help the IoT-enabled connected retail market reach $53 Billion by 2022.

“Jasper and Cisco have the combined talent, technology, expertise and scale to help service providers, enterprise customers and ecosystem partners worldwide capture their share of the market today and innovate over time,” Mohammed continued. With the IoT Cloud Business Unit, Cisco is moving up the stack to deliver a complete portfolio that simplifies the launch, management and monetization of IoT service for everyone.”

Pedro Hernandez is a contributing editor at Datamation. Follow him on Twitter @ecoINSITE.

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