Cisco announced today that it has acquired ThinkSmart Technologies, an Ireland-based location analytics technology company.
Cisco’s Hilton Romanski had this to say about the news in a blog post:
The widespread proliferation of mobile devices and services provides opportunities for enterprises and service providers to better serve their end users based on location and preferences inside venues and retail spaces. With Cisco’s acquisition of ThinkSmart’s network and Wi-Fi location analytics capabilities announced today, the customer experience in public venues such as retail locations, hotels and airports, is about to get much better.
ThinkSmart Technologies, based in Cork, Ireland, is a software company that delivers location data analysis using Wi-Fi technology. Together, Cisco and ThinkSmart will enhance the wireless network by providing location intelligence and analytics to service provider and enterprise customers to know what is happening in their environments and to better engage end users.
ThinkSmart’s location analytics collects information on movement within a venue including time of day, traffic patterns and dwell times. This information helps enterprises and venue operators improve the customer experience by identifying appropriate staffing levels, reducing wait times, optimizing business processes, and improving customer flows.
“Together, Cisco and ThinkSmart will enhance the wireless network infrastructure by providing location analytics to customers to more effectively analyze end user behavior,” said ThinkSmart in an announcement on its site. “By enhancing Cisco networks with location analytics technology, Cisco will enable customers to extract greater value from the network allowing them to make better, timelier business decisions that lead to new monetization channels and enhanced consumer/end-user experiences.”
The acquisition closed in the first quarter of Cisco’s fiscal year 2013. Terms were not disclosed.