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The Internet is moving away from being a data transportation and messaging platform, into a space filled with integrated rich-media content such as video and voice, and Web 2.0 platforms such as Facebook, that encourages online collaborations even at the enterprise level, according to Cisco Systems.

 The networking giant also sees increasing demand for distributed virtualized data center architecture, Irving Tan, newly-appointed managing director of Cisco Singapore and Brunei, said during a media briefing here Thursday.

He noted that this “new Internet” will frame the company’s future strategies and product offerings.

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• Cisco Earnings: Demand Expected to Bounce Back, Supply Worries Loom (seekingalpha.com)

CEO John Chambers said the economic recovery appears to be gaining speed, and that Cisco will add as many as 3,000 jobs over the next few quarters as it looks to continue its expansion into new markets. Chambers’ comments came as he announced a solid fiscal second quarter that included a 23.2 increase in income over the same period last year and an 8 percent jump in sales.

Cisco Systems will add 2,000 to 3,000 jobs over the next few quarters as it continues to push into new markets and as officials see the economic recovery gaining steam, according to CEO John Chambers.

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• Cisco blows past Street’s forecast (money.cnn.com)
• Cisco earnings: great expectations (brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com)

Enterprises looking to drive down costs and improve communications increasingly are turning to video conferencing, according to a new survey down for Global IP Solutions. The survey echoes what other studies are finding, and reinforcing the strategies of such vendors as Cisco, Polycom, Juniper, Tandberg and Radvision. Businesspeople are increasingly using video to collaborate with colleagues, partners and customers, according to a recent survey. In a survey of 1,200 senior business professionals conducted by Research Now for IP communications company Global IS Solutions, about the majority said they have used a video conferencing application. Eighty percent of those surveyed in China said they had used such an application, while about 60 each in the United States and South Korea said they had. Almost 47 percent of those surveyed in Japan said they had used such an application. In the United States, 40 percent said their company will be deploying a video communication solution within the next six months to two years, according to the survey, released Feb. 3. About 80 percent of those businesspeople polled in China said their companies were planning deployments within the next 18 months.

Cisco Systems is on deck to deliver its fiscal second quarter results Wednesday and analysts are upbeat about the company’s prospects. The rub: Supply constraints may have put a lid on Cisco’s revenue.

Overall, Cisco is expected to deliver a strong quarter amid strong spending on data center upgrades and telecom companies’ infrastructure upgrades. In fact, a few analysts expect Cisco to hire about 2,000 to 3,000 employees over the next two to three quarters as demand bounces back.

Analysts expect Cisco to report second quarter earnings of 35 cents a share on revenue of $9.4 billion, according to Reuters Thomson. Gross margins are projected to be at 64.84 percent. In recent days, estimates have been creeping higher.

The bottom line: Cisco has weathered the downturn well and now is playing offense as it targets new markets and ramps up acquisitions.

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• Cisco Earnings: Demand Expected to Bounce Back, Supply Worries Loom (seekingalpha.com)

Cisco says it has bought Rohati Systems, a company specializing in agentless transaction networking systems designed to secure collaboration and ease regulatory compliance by providing granular access controls.

Cisco Systems confirmed that it has acquired Rohati Systems, a security startup founded by former Cisco employees.

Rohati came out of stealth mode in 2008 with a focus on providing TNS (transaction networking systems) to enable secure collaboration and ease regulatory compliance.

As technology companies make their annual trek to Las Vegas to unveil their coolest gadgets at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, investors are laying bets on another good year for the industry.

The mood at CES 2010 should be far more buoyant than in early 2009, when the economy was deep in recession and financial markets reeled from the credit crisis.

Tech stocks have since recovered, with the Nasdaq Composite Index ending 2009 up more than 40 percent, near a 15-month high. Analysts say stronger corporate IT spending, an explosion of activity around smartphones and mobile computing, plus consolidation, should further bolster the sector in 2010.

Broadpoint AmTech analyst Brian Marshall predicted a climb of roughly 15 percent in the Nasdaq in 2010, noting that some of the good news was already factored in to stock valuations.

“It’s going to be tough to find areas that won’t do well next year,” Marshall said.

Topping the list for many sell-side analysts are perennial blue-chip favorites like Google Inc, Apple Inc, Cisco Systems Inc and Intel Corp .

But with economic recovery slowly taking root and companies starting to upgrade their IT systems again, analysts say 2010 will offer tech investors a wide range of opportunities.

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• Speaking at CES 2010 (danielbru.com)

Cisco has released a security fix for at least six security holes that expose users of its WebEx Player software to remote code execution attacks.

The affected Cisco WebEx WRF Player is an application that is used to play back WebEx meeting recordings that have been recorded on the computer of an on-line meeting attendee.

Data centers, we’ve learned, are ideal places for green tech changes, since smarter cooling systems can pay off with big financial savings. Cisco Systems recently achieved an estimated savings of $120,000 per year in energy costs after simulating a data center using Future Facilities’ Virtual Facility simulation methodology. The data center occupies 7,000 square feet at Cisco’s San Jose campus, and costs $1.4 million per year in cooling and energy. A team trying to improve the center’s energy efficiency used the simulation method to create a detailed 3D model that duplicated the space, power, and cooling behavior of the actual facility, including thermal interactions between the room infrastructure, cooling system, cabinets, and individual IT equipment units. The analysis clearly showed that exhaust recirculation within the cabinets was the main problem. After installing new floor grilles and blanking panels, Cisco was able to decrease the chilled water cooling by 8 degrees, leading to $120,000 per year in energy cost savings.

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• Raise the Temperature, Fight the Fans (datacenterknowledge.com)

Starent investors have approved Cisco’s $2.9 billion acquisition of the mobile gear maker. The deal is designed to give Cisco more traction in the mobile Internet space as the number of smartphones and other connected devices grow. The relative ease of the Starent acquisition has contrasted with Cisco’s more volatile bid to buy video conferencing equipment maker Tandberg.

Now that’s the way Cisco Systems likes their acquisitions to go.

Starent Networks, which makes infrastructure products for wireless service providers such as AT&T and Verizon, announced that shareholders, at a special meeting Dec. 11 in Boston, approved the proposed $2.9 billion acquisition by Cisco.

The deal, which still has to get approval from regulators, is expected to close in the first half of 2010.

IBM has 18 million paying client seats for its LotusLive cloud services, a jump that will result in a few double takes among IT industry watchers.

That LotusLive tally at the beginning of the year was nil so the growth is stunning. I double checked with IBM to make sure that those 18 million client seats were actually paying with a price of more than zero. I was told there are no asterisks here.

Now IBM isn’t forking over revenue data on LotusLive cloud services. Customers pay anywhere from $3 a month to $79 a month depending on the service. IBM recently launched iNotes to go after Gmail in the enterprise, but its range of services competes with everything from Microsoft Office to Cisco’s WebEx.