Archive for the ‘General’ Category

Do more with your data: mobile ads and retail analytics

System administrators using Meraki’s products are used to getting an incredible amount of data about the users and traffic on their networks. Typically, that data is used to manage resources and troubleshoot issues directly related to the network, but there are quite a few other ways businesses can make use of that data to make smarter decisions.

In particular we’ve seen our customers in the retail industry start to take advantage of smartphone and mobile device trends to engage with the always-connected shopper. Now that visitors are  carrying and using internet-connected devices while shopping, savvy businesses have started creating advertising and coupon campaigns that target users while they are in the store. For a brick-and-mortar advertiser, smartphones provide a new opportunity to influence a potential customer in those important final moments in the decision-making process. The Apple Store and Square are some of the more visible examples of mobile devices enhancing the shopping experience, but there are plenty of ways to incorporate smartphones into an in-store strategy without a a huge investment of resources.

All good online marketers will take advantage of every piece of data available to them. The more information you can gather about your audience, the better you’re able to craft a relevant message and target your potential customers. Let’s take a look at how a retail customer using Meraki to provide guest WiFi access to shoppers can use the data from their network to supercharge an in-store advertising campaign.

Facebook has just started letting advertisers target mobile ads by OS (iOS or Android) and device (iPhone, iPad, or Android), a feature that Google AdWords has had for some time. Two of the most powerful online advertising platforms offering granular control like this is good news for an advertiser with a decent idea of which mobile devices are most important to his business. It’s great news for an advertiser who can see real statistics about the devices logging on to her network.

Meraki networks are capable of gathering a host of aggregate information about connected client devices, including device type and OS, so one can draw conclusions about the makeup of users as a whole. If a store uses Meraki to provide WiFi for its customers, a quick visit to the Summary Report in the dashboard can give you an aggregated view of what kinds of devices are being used by visitors to your store.

Armed with that data, a clever marketer can easily run intelligent in-store advertising. Distribute a budget between iOS and Android based on what’s actually in customers’ hands. Prioritize resources to develop a mobile app for the most popular mobile platform on your network, and then use the Meraki API to add in functionality to trigger special offers as soon as anyone logs on to the WiFi.

In the world of online marketing, the possibilities aren’t endless, but by learning more about your audience, you can get pretty close. Meraki makes it easy to spot trends in your network traffic, and you can do a lot more with that data than just making the internet faster—although your customers will certainly appreciate that as well.

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iOS 6 & Mobile Device Management

Apple announced during its recent unveiling of the iPad mini that almost every single Fortune 500 company had deployed the iPad in a business application or is testing iPads at the moment — that is nothing short of amazing for a device that was launched less than three years ago!

Apple’s much anticipated iOS 6 release packs a number of API enhancements for mobile device management to support the growing number of businesses that are deploying iPads, iPhones, and iPods for various applications.

                          

We’ve integrated many of the new MDM features in iOS 6 into Systems Manager, our free solution for mobile device management. Systems Manager users have access to these new features without having to install any new software or make any changes — it’s all right there in the Systems Manager dashboard!

Our new iOS 6 MDM features include:

  • Single App mode under Guided Access
  • Ability to disable iMessage
  • Passbook, Game Center, iBookstore, and shared Photo Stream blocking

Single App mode, also referred to as “kiosk” mode, locks the iOS device to a single app and disables the home button. A few scenarios include:

  • Retailers: Enhance the customer experience by creating a mobile point of sale (mPOS) terminal, without worrying about the iPad being used for any other purposes.
  • Hospitality: Enter the digital concierge! Hotels are setting up iPads in their lobbies and guest rooms, allowing guests to check in and out, order room service, and have various services literally at their fingertips. All that’s needed is an iPad — or iPad mini — set up in kiosk mode.
  • Education: Schools are already using iPads for various learning initiatives, and they can now be locked to a single app so students aren’t distracted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With iOS 6, disabling iMessage is a welcome addition to the security and compliance groups in highly regulated industries that need to concern themselves with archiving all communication and information exchanges for e-discovery.

Note that for some of these features, Apple requires the device to be placed in supervised mode by Apple Configurator — but not to worry, Meraki Systems Manager also integrates with Apple Configurator, allowing supervised devices to be managed via the Meraki dashboard.

If you haven’t given Meraki’s Systems Manager a try yet, go ahead and give it a try – lots of awesomeness awaits you!

Halloween at Meraki: Spooky, Scary!

This year’s Halloween party  was thrilling to say the least. Spooky decorations, delicious food, and special fall drinks made for a frightfully good time. Meraki’s own TRAVISWILD provided the music, and our mascot Miles even made a rare appearance.

 

But clearly the highlight of the party  was the zombie flashmob performing Michael Jackson’s Halloween classic “Thriller”

Like us on Facebook to see video of  the dance and check out the whole album.

Free Networking Gear for Startups Launches Today

At Meraki, we love getting our gear into people’s hands. We think we make a pretty awesome product and once people get a taste of how easy to use Meraki is, they become our biggest fans.

Our latest greatest idea is to get our gear into the offices of the hottest, most promising startups through our Meraki Startup Kit – a complete standalone set of networking hardware: two of our highest performance wireless access points, a high-throughput security appliance, and a 24 port switch with Power-over-Ethernet. With a value of over $15,000 – we have a limited number of Meraki Startup Kits, but they are entirely free and include 5 year licenses for qualifying startups.

The Meraki Startup Kit is intended to give small companies a helping hand with their network infrastructure and a way for us to share our success with the next generation of disruptive startups.

As part of our beta release, two startups have already received their Meraki Startup Kits and are enjoying the ease of use with Meraki’s dashboard management.

San Francisco-based Copious – “a social marketplace to buy and sell the things you love” – was the first company to receive a Meraki Startup Kit. With 17 employees and a recent round of Series A funding, Copious was outgrowing its existing networking setup, so getting the opportunity to implement a Meraki network for free was perfectly timed.

For vline, a cloud video conferencing platform for developers, the Meraki Startup Kit will provide a solid office network foundation as the company develops its tools and platform for a wider public release. Ben Strong, vline’s CEO, commented that “Meraki access points are great for video conferencing. Much better than all the other ones we’ve tried.” As vline grows into its Palo Alto office, the Meraki network is an ideal networking solution to support the team.

Today we’re excited to open up the applications to the greater startup community. Meraki hardware is high quality, easy to set up, and low maintenance – the perfect infrastructure for startups relying on rock-solid Internet connections to develop, converse, and deploy in the cloud.

To see if your company would be a good fit for our program, take a look at the requirements and fill out the application here: www.meraki.com/startupkit.

Meraki makes a splash at IPEXPO in London

The Meraki team has almost recovered from two exciting days at this year’s IPEXPO at Earls Court in London. IPEXPO is the UK’s premier event covering IP Networking, Virtualization, Cloud, Wireless, Storage and Security, so with a line-up like that you can be sure it’s a packed venue with a vast array of exhibitors.

Our stand welcomed several hundred visitors, attracted by the bold stand design, regular dashboard demos and – of course – the glamorous Meraki gang, some of whom you can see relaxing at the end of day 1 here…

 

On day 1 we also presented at one of the breakout seminars, providing attendees an opportunity to hear how one large retail customer has benefited from Meraki’s simplified approach to networking. Perhaps not surprisingly, the customer has been finding great value in the PCI reporting tool built in to every Meraki wireless network. Also with a network containing over 550 stores, the ability to synchronize configurations from one site to another has proven very useful, facilitating at-a-glance config checking and expansion to new locations with a couple of clicks of the mouse.

We were delighted to receive very positive feedback across the two days, with visitors to our stand really appreciating the opportunity to speak directly to our technical staff, but also to hear complex technologies explained in clear language they could understand. We just don’t do weighty config documentation and death by slides at Meraki. The emphasis is on an open dialogue and real-time demos of our product in action, and our approach clearly resonated well. Here’s just one piece of feedback we were delighted to see online.

 

 

We do hope you can make it along to one of the many events we attend as we love meeting our customers and like-minded enthusiasts. You can find comprehensive details on where to see catch us on our events page. We’re looking forward to meeting you!

First iPhone 5 joins our network

Congratulations to Sid Desai and Michael Etchells, two members of our sales team, for getting the first iPhone 5s in the company!

Figuring out the first iPhone 5s in your company couldn’t be easier with Meraki’s Dashboard: Do a search for “iphone”, sort by capability, and voila:

 

 

 

 

CRN selects Meraki as one of the Coolest Emerging Vendors

We’re thrilled to announce that Meraki was honored as one of CRN magazine’s Emerging Vendors for 2012. CRN chose the most innovative companies founded since 2006 that have already started to make waves in enterprise technology. What’s more, we also were named as one of the 25 Coolest Emerging Vendors.

We’ve worked hard to deliver innovative solutions for the enterprise market, so it’s great to be recognized as a leader. Thanks to CRN for the honor!

Check out our profile here and the full list at www.crn.com

Meraki Customer Highlight: Dirk DeLo, Avenues School

We recently had a number of our customers in HQ to spend some time with our staff and discuss their needs and what Meraki can do for them. We took the opportunity to do a series of short videos with each customer, and will be posting them over the next few weeks.

First off is Dirk DeLo, the CTO at Avenues, a new K-12 school opening in New York.  Dirk is deploying  a new network to support multiple-devices-per-student using Meraki:

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Provide WiFi at your event with free Meraki APs!

Startup Riot Atlanta

 

Since Meraki is providing free gear for awesome events such as this week’s Startup Riot Seattle and gdgt live after that, we thought it was a great opportunity to highlight our Free Event WiFi program that we’ve been running for the past couple years.

For whatever reason, event WiFi can be less than satisfying.  The irony is that more often than not, the tech events with the most tech-savvy folk in attendance are the ones that end up having WiFi problems.  We generally hear that the WiFi networks are difficult to set up, overloaded, and usually require passwords that the event attendees never get.

At Meraki, we’ve had some experience setting up WiFi at large events so we know it can be done, it’s just a matter of having the right equipment and a little know-how.

Meraki can give you both — for free. The Meraki Free Event WiFi program enables us to lend out our enterprise-grade WiFi equipment for meetups, startup weekends, and hackathons.

You provide the Internet connection, and we provide no-hassle WiFi for your event.  The gear arrives pre-configured, with a single page of setup instructions, and you basically forget all about it.  Once the event is over, you return the gear to us, give us feedback on how flawless your event WiFi was, tweet about it, and share this program with your friends.

As mentioned, we provided event WiFi for Startup Riot Seattle.  After Sanjay used our gear for Startup Riot Atlanta [pictured above], he contacted us again for the Seattle event.  Borrowing APs through Meraki Free Event WiFi is a great option for event organizers who have events that require a lot of WiFi bandwidth for just a couple days each year.

Last month, we provided Free Event WiFi to Derrick for his first ever Educational Technology Conference and his Meraki experience was pretty typical.  He told us, “Everything went swimmingly.  Our network admin was very impressed with the management console.”

A couple weekends ago, we supplemented Change.org’s existing Meraki network with some of our Free Event WiFi gear for their Hack for Change event.

 

After a successful turnout of 150+ attendees, Ben at Change.org told us that it “was really great to not have to worry about wifi!! It was fantastic and very much appreciated. Keep on doing what you do!!”

We’re happy to oblige, Ben.

Learn more and sign your event up here.

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