Cisco CEO: It’s time to make IT simpler
Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins has outlined the company’s goal to help customers across the world have an easier time managing their systems.
Speaking in his opening keynote at Cisco Live 2023 in Las Vegas, Robbins covered a host of topics and areas, but kept returning to one key message – making technology simpler.
“We want to help you accelerate your innovation. We want to simplify your experience,” he noted. “We love features..For years, it’s been a feature game. But if you can’t deploy them, they’re no good. So, the number one feature that I think our team needs to continue to focus on is simplicity. Simplify your experience using our technology.”
Technology is the key
“We know how important technology is to the success of your businesses…and to humanity,” Robbins added, highlighting the key role of technology played for organizations everywhere during the pandemic.
“Technology is key to everything we’re doing going forward…(but) It’s a complicated world – but we have to bring this technology to bear to realize the benefit of what we can do around the world.”
Robbins noted that Cisco now works with over a million customers and partners across the globe, with its technology present at 98% of the largest organizations in the world. This gives the company unparalleled insight into the issues affecting businesses in multiple industries, he added, particularly around security and connectivity – Cisco’s traditional strong points.
“When we look to the future, we want to connect everything securely,” he stated.
The company was able to share more on both its Cisco Networking Cloud, and its Cisco Security Cloud platforms, both of which look to give companies far more insight and intelligence to help them run more efficiently and safely.
AI was the elephant in the room, but Robbins did not avoid it, noting that Cisco had been using the technology for some time before ChatGPT and OpenAI grabbed headlines around the world.
“AI is moving so quickly and we as organisations are trying to figure out, how do we use it, along with trust, and what are the risks, how are we getting benefits,” he noted. “We want to do great things with AI – but we want to do it responsibly.”
Overall, the message from Robbins was fairly clear – Cisco is set to continue its push to connect and secure customers all over the world.
“We care deeply about your success,” he concluded, “we are innovating at a faster pace than we have done for some time, and we want to continue to do so.”