Cisco

The race to provide ultrafast broadband is on. In May, Cleveland will become a test bed for a service, spearheaded by Case Western Reserve University, that lets residents of more than 100 homes download data at about 1 gigabit per second. In February, Google said it plans an ultra-high-speed broadband network covering as many as 500,000 users. "The purpose of this project is to experiment and learn," Google said in a blog introducing the idea. "Network providers are making real progress to expand and improve high-speed Internet access, but there's still more to be done." The U.S.

The race to provide ultrafast broadband is on.

Cisco on Wednesday released a new network architecture that promises secure wired and wireless communications, energy management, and optimized video-application delivery -- all at a lower cost. Dubbed Cisco Borderless Access, the latest version of the company's Borderless Networks architecture includes a new series of fixed-switching product lines: the Catalyst 3560/3750-X Series and 2960-S Series. The new lines come with lower prices than traditional Cisco switches.

The wait is over. Cisco Systems on Tuesday finally took the lid off its hype machine to reveal ... a new router. Cisco is positioning its CRS-3 Carrier Routing System as the foundation of the next-generation Internet that will pave the way for rapid growth of video transmissions, mobile devices, and new online services.

In a move to address an ongoing mobile challenges in the enterprise, Cisco Systems on Tuesday announced a new architecture to help business users access information from any device and from any location with better security. At the RSA Conference in San Francisco, Cisco debuted the Cisco Secure Borderless Network architecture.

The platform focuses on what Cisco sees as four critical anchors: Mobile and fixed enterprise end points, the Internet, the data center, and context- and location-aware policies.

Cisco Systems on Thursday moved to end its long-term relationship with Hewlett-Packard. With the two companies increasingly competing in servers and networking, Cisco decided to formally cut HP from its reseller program, effective April 30.

Cisco's decision means HP will no longer have access to proprietary information from its newly found rival. Although HP can still sell Cisco products to its client base, the computing giant won't be able to tap into incentives.

Cisco Systems Inc. blew past its own forecast for the latest quarter, reporting its first sales increase in a year as it left the recession behind.

Improvement was dramatic "across the board," CEO John Chambers said Wednesday. "The recovery, from a capital spending perspective, is very strong."

The company also provided an outlook for the current quarter that was far above analyst expectations.

Social networks have infiltrated themselves into the lives of millions of Internet users. While some businesses have embraced the phenomenon, others are being negatively impacted by the use of social networks at the office.

Aside from distracting individuals from their everyday work and affecting companies' bottom lines, they are also negatively impacting their security.

Cisco Systems, NetApp and VMware are joining forces to bring new design architectures to market. The goal is to develop virtualized data centers that are more efficient, dynamic and secure.

The trio on Tuesday introduced an end-to-end Secure Multi-tenancy Design Architecture that works to beef up security in cloud environments by isolating the IT resources and applications of different clients, business units, or departments that share a common IT infrastructure.

Flanked by a coterie of gadgets in a private suite at the USA's biggest consumer electronics show, Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers might seem like the proverbial fish out of water.

Yet the leader of the computer-networking giant had delivered a keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show [and] was outlining its consumer plans.

It's all part of Cisco's audacious gambit to plunge into new markets, spend billions to snap up companies and partner with others, despite a sour economy.