Cisco Buys IoT Specialist Jasper For £960m

Cisco continues to ramp up its Internet of Things credentials with the purchase of IoT specialist Jasper Technologies.

The acquisition is costing Cisco $1.4bn (£959m) in cash, reflecting the established nature of Jasper within the IoT ecosystem.

IoT Scalability

Jasper is a privately held company that offers a cloud-based IoT service platform to “help enterprises and service providers launch, manage and monetise IoT services.”

Indeed, it could be argued that Santa Clara-based Jasper is the leading IoT service platform, as many of the world’s largest enterprises (3,500 to be exact) use the Jasper platform for their IoT services.

The Jasper platform gives the opportunity to securely connect any type of device (car, smartphone, pacemaker etc) to a mobile network. Jasper’s Software as a Service (SaaS) platform then allows firms to manage the connectivity of their IoT services, as well as analyse and collect data.

“I am excited about the opportunity for Cisco and Jasper to accelerate how customers recognize the value of the Internet of Things,” said Chuck Robbins, Cisco CEO. “Together, we can enable service providers, enterprises and the broader ecosystem to connect, automate, manage, and analyse billions of connected things, across any network, creating new revenue streams and opportunities.”

“IoT has become a business imperative across the globe,” said Jahangir Mohammed, Jasper CEO. Mohammed will run the new IoT Software Business Unit under Rowan Trollope, Cisco general manager, IoT and Collaboration Technology Group.

“Enterprises in every industry need integrated solutions that give them complete visibility and control over their connected services, while also being simple to implement, manage and scale,” said Mohammed. “By coming together, Jasper and Cisco will help mobile operators and enterprises accelerate their IoT success.”

Cisco is touting the fact that Jasper will make IoT simple, scalable and interoperable.

“With Jasper, enterprises can simplify and automate the management of IoT services across a wide range of connected products such as cars, printers, vending machines and many others,” Cisco argued in a blog posting.

“Jasper understands that enterprises making connected products need a simple, scalable and interoperable IoT service platform that can support the billions of connected devices estimated to be connected to the network in the next five years,” said Cisco.

IoT Drive

Cisco is certainly committed to an IoT future, and has invested heavily in the sector in recent years.

Last summer it announced its ‘IoT System’, a new umbrella banner for its M2M portfolio of products and applications.

It has also established a number of IoT-related partnerships as the company strives to provide the foundational technologies – from networking gear to data centre servers and storage – for the tens of billions of devices that will make up the Internet of Things.

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