Cisco gets into the building management space

On January 27, 2009, Cisco announced that it was acquiring a company that provides middleware to bridge between the IT and building management systems. Cisco says that the acquisition of Richards-Zeta Building Intelligence can allow IT systems - including servers, phones, Telepresence, digital signage, and networking equipment - to be managed in much the same way as security, HVAC, and other building management systems.

CNET reported yesterday that this acquisition plays into some strategies that Cisco already has underway in energy management as an IT application. Cisco has a solution called EnergyWise, which is software that can be added as a free upgrade to software is a free upgrade to Cisco Catalyst switches that can monitor and manage how energy is used on IP-connected devices, including phones and wireless routers. This summer Cisco will release a version, based on Verdiem's Surveyor PC management software, that reduces energy levels of PCs. With EnergyWise, a company can set policies on energy use, allowing PCs or networking equipment to go into sleep mode after work hours, for example.

The Richards-Zeta integration could provide some interesting features for large buildings or for large campus settings (Cisco's own huge campus will probably be the first beneficiary). I think that the tie-in to digital signage, where different meeting or conference rooms are centrally scheduled, can be quite useful. When the central calendar notes that Conference Room A is not scheduled for any meetings, the room can be set to an unoccupied mode, where lights are turned off, the temperature is adjusted accordingly, and so forth. I would think that colleges would be looking for an integrated system that could help manage both communications and building management infrastructure.