Second wave of Internet is collaboration: Chambers

NEW DELHI, INDIA: The second wave of Internet is in collaboration, networking major Cisco’s chairman and CEO, John Chambers said.

Delivering the key note address on ‘Networked Nations – Transformational Change with e-Governance' at the third India Public Sector Summit, Chambers said that Web 2.0 will evolve from being individual to group culture. “As bandwidth and the power of the chips increase, it will change the nature of work itself,” he said.

Web 2.0

"The second wave of Internet – Web 2.0 will see collaboration of data, voice and video resulting in increase in productivity. Unlike the first wave where it was enterprises working towards the consumers, the second wave will see consumers driving the enterprises," Chambers said.

In this context, he referred to the Time magazine’s conclusion of ‘You’ at the center of information, and the latest BusinessWeek magazine’s write-up on how new technology and tools will not only change work but also the nature of how we work in future.

The Cisco chief elaborated on how the networking major had managed to use Web 2.0 technologies starting from YouTube to WebEx in their business processes.

"We have used the second wave effectively. At Cisco, we have a blog, which is fed into the employee’s email, which is read online. The employee sees his related topic to learn about an issue. The employee learns more via community blogs and Ciscopedia, our own version of the Wikipedia. The employee also finds the topic and experts, and can talk to the expert via a direct video call," he added.

Chambers said that the power of collocation has transformed the enterprise working at Cisco, including sales, service, engineering, acquisitions and the like. "This has also resulted in new business models being created. In fact we have conducted close to 28, 813 virtual meetings, which includes board meets, analysts conference and investor meets," he said.

Emerging markets

The Cisco chief is of the view that the emerging markets will drive businesses in future. “We took a stand a decade back to go to the emerging markets such as India, and today, it is here we witness a major contribution to our growth story,” he said.

"From 1997 to 2004, there was a growth in the US market from 1-2 percent to as high as 5 percent. Then it dropped back to 2 percent again. However, in the emerging countries we still see 40 percent growth. Globalisation is clearly emerging as the future model of leading innovation. The emerging countries lead. The world is truly flat," Chambers said.

India strategy

Chambers said that the growth would be driven by next generation of partners, with companies such as Wipro, Infosys, Tata, Capgemini, EDS and Accenture taking the lead.

"India thrives on change and that is what has made Cisco counts to be a part of it. We see the country transformation as a value proposition and the differentiator we see is the replicable strategy of enterprises here. It is not the labour arbitrage in India, but the talent, virtual delivery and new models that can be driven out of India," he asserted.

Chambers said that apart from moving top five executives into the country which is to be the fifth developed country by 2025, Cisco will also be tripling its headcount to 10,000 by 2009. "The other goal is the pilot manufacturing project in Chennai and driving innovation and the future leaders from India," he added.