Cisco likely to acquire July Systems, a mobile application platform provider for strengthening its enterprise Wi-Fi platform to enable better indoor location services capabilities.

United States: Cisco is all set to acquire the California and Bengaluru based July Systems, a mobile application platform provider in an effort to strengthen its enterprise Wi-Fi platform for enabling better indoor location services capabilities, among other offerings.

July Systems offers an enterprise-grade location platform with features like instant customer activation, data-driven behavioral insights, contextual rules engine and APIs. The terms and purchase price of the acquisition have not yet been disclosed.

In an official statement, the company informed of its plan to add July Systems’ platform and business context capabilities to provide a unified solution on which their customers as well as partners can build and deliver a range of indoor location services for industries such as healthcare, government, logistics, manufacturing, sports arenas, hotels, education and retail.

Founded in 2001, July Systems had raised around $59 million from investors like Sequoia Capital, Intel Capital and others. According to the Vice President of Cisco, corporate business development, enterprises will now possess an opportunity for taking advantage of in-building Wi-Fi for a broad range of indoor location services. In addition to providing seamless connectivity, Wi-Fi will also aid enterprises glean deep visitor behavior insights, associate these learnings with their enterprise systems, and drive better customer and employee experiences.

Cisco has intended several applications for indoor location services like A hospital manager can look at the concentration of activity within his facility and determine where bottlenecks are that could be removed, saving lives. A retail store owner can determine which areas of the store people tend to congregate in and move featured inventory for better display.

Cisco said it expects the acquisition to be complete in the first quarter of fiscal year 2019. The intended July acquisition is Cisco’s third this year.  The company bought artificial intelligence firm, Accompany in May and cloud technology provider Skyport Systems in January.  Cisco made nine acquisitions in 2017 including AppDynamics and Viptela.

This acquisition will also help Cisco support intent-based networking - a way of building and managing networks. Cisco recently announced that it is opening its intent-based network with a suite of new developer tools. July, a privately held company headquartered in Burlingame, Calif., sells its product by subscription.

July Systems' platform integrates with a company's customer management system to identify people walking into a retail store or mall. The July software can then interact with the people through text messages, email or push notifications. The system also continuously maps the physical location of retail customers and uses the information to calculate their behavior patterns. July Systems software can also send collected data to business intelligence applications for further analysis. Before the acquisition, July Systems was a Cisco partner. The company made its location services and analytics available through the Cisco Connected Mobile Experiences. CMX is a set of location-based products that use Cisco's wireless infrastructure

According to TechSci Research, the acquisition of July systems by CISCO will enable CISCO to strengthen its enterprise Wi-Fi platform as well as support intent-based networking - a way of building and managing networks. The acquisition is also expected to have a positive impact on the growth of Wi-Fi Analytics Market. The rising penetration of internet as well as smart devices, such as smartphones, tablets, etc. Moreover, increasing deployment of data analytics across various brick and mortar businesses, along with rising competition between online and offline retail businesses is further expected to propel the Wi-Fi analytics market, globally. Additionally, smart city initiatives by governments of various countries coupled with advanced Wi-Fi technologies are also anticipated to boost demand for Wi-Fi analytics solutions and services in the coming years.

According to the recently published report by TechSci Research, “Global Wi-Fi Analytics Market, By Component (Solutions & Services), By Deployment Type (On-Premise & Cloud), By Location (Indoor & Outdoor), By Industry (Retail, Hospitality, etc), By Application, By Region, Competition Forecast & Opportunities, 2023”, The global Wi-Fi analytics market stood at around $ 1.3 billion in 2017 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of over 28%, to surpass $ 5.6 billion by 2023, on account of increasing deployment of big data analytics across various brick and mortar businesses, rising competition between online and offline retail businesses, growing adoption of public Wi-Fi systems, etc., across the globe. Moreover, increasing IoT adoption across various industries, rising adoption of enhanced Wi-Fi technologies for boosting the performance of Wi-Fi systems, and growing emergence of shared data ecosystem concept across various retail stores, enterprises, etc., are expected to boost the global Wi-Fi analytics market in the coming five years. 

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