Cisco buying location-based software firm

Cisco Systems plans to acquire July Systems, a maker of location-based software for an undisclosed amount.

"This acquisition also supports our journey to intent-based networking -a fundamentally new way of building and managing networks for the digital era," Cisco said in a statement.

After the deal is complete, privately held July Systems will be part of Cisco's Enterprise Networking Group.

July Systems has developed software that solves the problem of a disconnect that exists between the online and physical realms. For example, knowing a customer’s preferences in an online context and then combining thay information into the real world to enhance the experinece in stores.

July Systems connects to a building’s WiFi system to understand the customer who just walked in the door, how many times they have shopped at this retailer, their loyalty point score and so forth. This gives the vendor the same kind of understanding about that customer offline as they are used to getting online.

“Enterprises have an opportunity to take advantage of their in-building Wi-Fi for a broad range of indoor location services. In addition to providing seamless connectivity, Wi-Fi can help enterprises glean deep visitor behavior insights, associate these learnings with their enterprise systems, and drive better customer and employee experiences,” Cisco’s Rob Salvagno wrote in a blog post.

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