IoT has come of age with Cisco's Jasper buy, reseller claims
Resellers cheer Cisco's $1.4bn deal for US IoT firm Jasper
Cisco partners have cheered its $1.4bn (£0.97bn) deal for Internet of Things (IoT) player Jasper Technologies, with one claiming IoT has come of age with the buy.
Santa Clara-based Jasper provides a cloud IoT platform "to help enterprises and service providers launch, manage and monetise IoT services on a global scale".
Chuck Robbins, Cisco CEO, said the channel can profit from the deal with new sales opportunities.
"I am excited about the opportunity for Cisco and Jasper to accelerate how customers recognise the value of IoT," he said. "Together, we can enable service providers, enterprises, and the broader ecosystem to connect, automate, manage, and analyse billions of connected things, across any network, creating new revenue streams and opportunities."
Cisco resellers have reacted warmly to the news, with John Pepper, founder of Cisco Gold partner Managed 24/7, saying he was delighted with the deal.
"It's turning the marketing hype around IoT into reality," he said. "We already were using Jasper as a test bed in-house anyway as part of our predictive monitoring tools. There is also a product called Davra that is on Cisco's product list and they complement each other. The acquisition has allowed Cisco to really start to end-to-end the whole IoT piece.
"It's going to tick an awful lot of boxes and accelerate Cisco's proposition in IoT, so it's a fantastic acquisition at just the right time."
Pepper said he thought the $1.4bn-price was a fair reflection given the potential for the market.
"It's a beautiful piece of the jigsaw that now makes Cisco one of the leading players for IoT," he added.
Oliver Rickeard, sales director at VAR Atomos Networks, was also ebullient about the news.
"One of their key drivers this year is to be the leader in IoT and that's where Cisco is going to continue on the acquisition process," he said. "They will pick off companies that are of a similar ilk to Jasper.
"I hadn't heard of Jasper before the acquisition the other day, but I'm not surprised [Cisco] have bought them. It's very complementary to their product set."
Adam Pedder, managing director of Shadowfax Technology, said he wanted Cisco to make sure the acquisition benefits the whole market.
"IoT is very up and coming, but has yet to reach the SMB market," he said. "With Cisco's acquisition of Jasper, we would hope to see a strong backing and investment in this technology to increase accessibility across a wider market."