ON FRIDAY Cisco Systems announced it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Metropolis, an organization of 106 large cities mostly outside the United States, to collaborate on a project to help leaders use technology to be more efficient and less polluting.
Cisco sees such alliances as part of its larger plan of moving beyond its core products to meet Chief Executive John Chamber's aggressive growth targets of 12 to 17 percent a year.
In particular, Cisco aims to build the foundation for "intelligent" city infrastructure based on Internet Protocol technology. That includes everything from better-managed power grids that use less energy to "smart" buildings running on a single network.
For example, Cisco is working on technology that will automatically adjust lighting and air conditioning based on when employees arrive for work.
If an employee badge is swiped across a censor early in the morning, only power systems for his or her office and corridor will be turned on.
Cisco has made a number of acquisitions to bolster its technology offering in this area, including its January purchase of Richards-Zeta Building Intelligence. The Santa Barbara company is a maker of "middleware" technology that enables businesses to manage building systems, from lights and air conditioning to elevators, to save energy.
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