Networking News

Here’s Why Cisco Meraki’s Security Cameras Are Taking Off

‘We launched this camera a couple of years ago and it has been the most successful product launch at Meraki ever and I think that’s because of two things,’ says Cisco GM Todd Nightingale in an interview with CRNtv.

Cisco Meraki is growing fast. The cloud-managed IT company with a vision to make technology simple amassed a million network users a decade after its founding in 2006. Over the last 20 months, Meraki doubled that number.

“I see mid-size and even small businesses using Meraki and finding not just the power but the flexibility to grow their business,” said Todd Nightingale, Cisco Meraki General Manager and SVP.

Cisco acquired Meraki six years ago in an effort to modernize its portfolio. The enterprise networking company is focused on simplifying the digital workplace as seen in new products like the MV camera line. The security cameras feature end-to-end encryption and use machine learning to provide advanced analytics. Nightingale says the product remains Meraki’s most successful product launch.

“We launched this camera a couple of years ago and it has been the most successful product launch at Meraki ever and I think that’s because of two things: It’s the simplest enterprise camera on the market and the feature set continues to evolve. We’ve built deep, deep intelligence into this camera using machine learning and we’ve opened up the APIs to enable partners around the world to build incredibly powerful technology on top of this platform, bringing machine vision and machine learning to everyone.”

Meraki is targeting the camera to the small- to medium-sized business (SMB) market with limited IT personnel, as well as K-12, higher education, healthcare and the enterprise.

Other new initiatives include a partnership with Sprint that combines Wi-Fi and network visibility capabilities. Customers will get a cloud-based dashboard for enhanced visibility into the network, giving them access to advanced analytics.

“Next at Meraki are really three things: We are doubling down on simplicity – just because Meraki is the simplest does not mean it can’t be simpler and we will always be striving to bring the simplest platform to market. The second piece is really a focus on driving deep intelligence into all products that we ship like we did with Wireless Health and Meraki Insight, building network assurance products as well as of course our machine vision with the camera portfolio. And, the third is the focus on the entire digital workplace, making sure we are simplifying as much as the infrastructure as we possibly can,” said Nightingale.

Watch the video included in this article for CRNtv’s latest coverage on Cisco Meraki.