Meraki builds cloud managed wireless and wired access points as well as providing network acceleration and security capabilities. Meraki’s hardware appliances are based on a hardened Linux operating system and includes a subscription based service for cloud management.
Rob Soderbery, senior vice president of Cisco’s Enterprise Networking Group said during a Monday morning conference call that the Meraki acquisition moves Cisco further into the cloud and advances the company’s position in the midmarket.
He added that Cisco has been doing well in the wireless market so far, as shown by the company’s first quarter fiscal 2013 wireless revenue growth of 38 percent. The addition of Meraki is intended to be complementary, by going after the networking midmarket in a way that Cisco has not done to date.