思科发力争夺“智能城市”蛋糕

    所谓的智慧城市是指，未来的城市由数字驱动，连接无所不在。在那里，从交通灯号到执法、再到垃圾收集，一切经过最优设计之后都达到了算法的精度。而一谈到建设智慧城市，我们总是想到这个话题和市场的主要驱动者：IBM公司。但思科公司(Cisco)与瑞士技术和分析公司AGT国际(AGT International)最新缔结的伙伴关系显示，“蓝色巨人”(Big Blue )并不是唯一一家认为全球市政基础设施蕴含着巨大钱景的公司。

    思科与AGT联盟计划于未来5年内在遍及全球的30至50个城市推出独具一格的智慧城市技术。他们将充分利用新兴的“物联网”(Internet of Things)以提高效率，降低成本，同时力争在2020年之前推动相关收入达到年均10亿美元。这项战略伙伴关系将融合多种庞大的思科软硬件工具和AGT在市政数据分析及预测软件领域的专长，以创建新奇的架构。如果一切顺利，这些架构将帮助城市催生和管理海量数据，最初将用于交通管理和公共安全目的。（更多应用，包括智能电网管理，将出现在不同的开发阶段。）

    但另外一个事实也许更有意思，那就是，信息产业巨头思科公司正在大举进军市政领域。“我们相信，未来的竞争将在城市之间展开，”思科公司产业解决方案事务执行副总裁兼首席全球化官维姆•埃尔夫林克说。“既是经济竞争，也是社会竞争。年轻人想在哪里生活，在哪里工作？所以，它也是一种人才竞争，环境竞争。能源消耗、污染程度，人们关心的标准越来越多。”

    近几年来，思科其实一直活跃在这个领域，尽管它不像IBM那样醒目和积极。全世界有不少城市通过IBM的智能运营中心软件(Intelligent Operations Center)管理自己的市政运营的各个方面。私人持有的AGT是一家相对年轻的公司（仅有7年历史），但凭借高达12亿美元的营业收入，这家位于苏黎世的公司已经确立了它在城市管理技术领域的地位。这家公司曾经帮助新加坡等资源和空间有限的城市利用数据和技术提升运营效率。埃尔夫林克表示，思科与AGT结为合作伙伴是为了利用蓬勃兴起的“物联网”技术（除电脑和智能手机之外，许许多多的物理实物正在被接入互联网，比如各种设备，家电和汽车）和功能增强的数据分析工具，以解决全球各地城市当前和未来面临的种种挑战。思科方面透露称，这些城市正在以每小时新增10,000人的速度急剧扩张。

    When it comes to building so-called smart cities -- the data-driven, ubiquitously connected cities of the future where everything from traffic signals to law enforcement to trash collection is optimized to algorithmic precision -- IBM has largely driven both the narrative and the marketplace. But a new partnership between Cisco and Swiss technology and analytics firm AGT International suggests Big Blue isn't the only one that thinks there's big money in making over the world's civic infrastructure.

    The Cisco/AGT alliance plans to roll out its own flavor of smart city technologies across 30-50 cities worldwide over the next five years, leveraging the emerging "Internet of Things" to drive efficiency up, costs down, and associated revenues to $1 billion annually by 2020. The strategic partnership will meld a range of Cisco's vast hardware and software tools with AGT's expertise in civic data analytics and predictive software to create novel architectures that, if all goes to plan, will help cities both generate and manage huge amounts of data, initially for traffic management and public safety purposes. (More applications, including smart grid management, are in various phases of development.)

    But perhaps more interesting is the fact that IT powerhouse Cisco (CSCO) is making a concerted push into the municipal space in the first place. "We believe the future of competition is going to be between cities," say Wim Elfrink, Cisco's executive vice president for industry solutions and chief globalization officer. "Economically, but also socially. Where do young people want to live, to work? So it's also a competition for talent, and for environment. Energy consumption, pollution -- there are more and more criteria that people care about."

    Cisco has actually been active in this space for several years now, though not as visibly or actively as IBM (IBM), whose Intelligent Operations Center software is deployed in cities across the globe to help manage various aspects of civic operations. For its part privately held AGT is a relatively young company (just seven years old), but with revenues of $1.2 billion the Zurich-based company has established itself as a presence in the city management technology space, helping cities like resource- and space-constrained Singapore leverage data and technology into greater efficiency. The aim of the Cisco/AGT partnership, Elfrink says, is to take advantage of the growing Internet of Things -- the explosion of devices, appliances, automobiles, and other physical objects beyond computers and smartphones that are plugged into the Internet -- and enhanced data analytics tools to solve the current and future challenges faced by cities around the globe, which are growing at a rate of 10,000 people per hour according to Cisco.