As companies become more distributed and less centralized in their operations, the need to spread IT out without adding a lot of capital and resource overhead has become a real challenge. One company is trying to address that need with a $100,000 developer contest to build the best applications for the distributed workforce.
The figures are daunting; a 2005 Gartner report pegged the number of virtual workforce users at 82.5 million worldwide, and estimated that in 2008 that number would be around 100 million workers. A recent Gallup Poll asked US full- or part-time workers if they had telecommuted, and found that 30 percent reported they had. In addition to virtual workers, the growing demand of regional centers and branches means that the central corporate infrastructure is getting an extreme makeover.
Traditionally, meeting the IT needs of this distributed structure might mean sending the IT workers out to where the branches are, staffing each local or regional branch with their own IT staff. Given the higher costs of travel and the shaky state of the world economy, the lack of viability in such a solution is glaringly apparent. Thus, the need for a virtual IT workforce.
It is in this gap that Cisco Systems finds itself, trying to bridge the needs of central IT policies in an increasingly distributed world. The makers of routers and network devices, Cisco's huge market share gives it a clear advantage to try and bring a unique solution to the problem: the company is inviting application developers to create Linux-based applications on the Cisco Application Extension Platform (AXP). The winner of the contest will receive $50,000 and a chance to work on Cisco's cutting-edge routing technology.
Cisco's Access Routing and Network Systems Groups, which are leading the effort to address virtual workforce needs, believe that instead of trying to duplicate an IT workforce at branch offices, the IT needs of the remote offices can be met by enhancing Cisco's integrated services routers (ISRs).
These devices have the capability of being more than just packet movers and dumb terminals, according to Shashi Kiran, Senior Manager, Network Systems at Cisco. It is Kiran's team that's leading the Think Inside the Box Contest, to introduce developers to Cisco's AXP code and also enhance the AXP's application repetoire.
The AXP is an open module that is hosted on Cisco's Integrated Services Router and leverages Cisco's Internetwork Operating System (IOS). External applications coded for the ISRs are actually written for the AXP, which is a module that runs Linux certified by the Linux Standard Base and contains open APIs for developers to tap into.
Cisco already has a network of 10+ partners who have worked with the networking company to build an array of AXP applications, Kiran explained, and is working with more to develop solutions for different verticals. One example in the healthcare sector is The Cardiovascular Group, whose 250 employees in nine locations have to fax 3,000-6,000 faxes a month. Busy fax machines and fax management costs were among the headaches for The Cardiovascular Group.
The medicine turned out to be a joint solution worked up by Cisco and SAGEM-Interstar, an ISV specializing in fax management software using Fax-over-IP. SAGEM and Cisco came up with an application for the AXP that, once implemented, saved The Cardiovascular Group around $3,000 a month.
With a partner network in place, then why does Cisco need to hold such a contest? Kiran cited three reasons for holding the event.
First, even with the existing partner network, AXP solutions have only been deployed on less than one percent of the 5 million-plus Integrated Services routers (not all of them are AXP-capable yet). That's a penetration number Kiran and his team would obviously like to see raised.
The second reason is one of outreach. "Cisco has good traction with IT workers," Kiran said. "But historically, not so much with application vendors." Cisco wants to outreach into (for them) a new community.
If they can successfully make contacts in the development community, Cisco hopes to apply those relationships in working with their customers moving forward. That's the third reason for the contest. Kiran explained that typically network and application decision makers work apart, in silos. Network decisions are rarely made with the applications in mind, and development calls don't usually take the network strategy into account.
"We want to bridge that gap," Kiran stated, "and create more unified IT decision making with the Network as a Platform, soliciting innovating applications from different constituents."
The contest, which officially began October 14, is global in scale. There are two phases to the contest: in Phase I, teams will submit high-level proposals for their application idea. Idea submissions (up to 10) that pass the criteria for being the most compelling will get to move on to Phase II, where finalists will be given access to the AXP via Cisco's Simulation Lab (if they need it) so they can develop for AXP on a Cisco ISR.
The timing of the phases is in a little bit of flux. Initially Phase I was to end in January 2009. But because of the contest's huge popularity in Asia, Kiran said, the Japanese and Chinese Cisco offices are taking some time to more fully adapt the contest to those markets. This may end of extending the deadline for Phase I. An announcement will be made soon on the contest website, and on Cisco's blog.
There are three prize levels in the contest: $50,000, $30,000, and $20,000. Entrants must be over 18 and not a Cisco employee, consultant, or an immediate family member. Cisco employees won't be too left out: the company is holding a separate internal contest in parallel to the external one.
An important feature of the contest, Kiran emphasized, is that contest entrants will always own the intellectual property rights to anything they submit--even the winners' code. Cisco will not assume rights to the IP of any submitted project, though the company is asking for the first right of refusal to acquire any contest code in which they might be interested.
For more information on the contest, visit the Cisco Think Inside the Box contest page.
