Cisco Systems Inc is next month to open a software development center in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), the first of its kind for the US firm in the Asia-Pacific Region, the company said on Wednesday.
The center is to be inaugurated after the Lunar New Year holiday, which ends on Feb. 16, Cisco vice president of greater China operations George Chen (陳志惟), who is also head of Cisco Systems Taiwan Ltd (台灣思科系統), told a news conference in Taipei.
The US information technology (IT), networking and cybersecurity solutions provider also released a workforce report at the news conference.
Photo courtesy of Cisco Systems Inc
Cisco Taiwan chief technology officer Robert Feng (馮志良) told reporters that the center would house tech start-ups from across the nation.
With the assistance of Cisco’s presence, these firms are expected to speed up their product development, he added.
In the initial stage, the center would focus on rolling out information security solutions, by combining the resources of Cisco and the start-ups, Feng said.
In the long term, Cisco would work with these companies to put out new applications in the global market, he said.
Cisco already operates similar centers in the US and Europe.
Meanwhile, Chen said that when he assumed the role of head of Cisco Taiwan three years ago, the company had about 60 employees, but now has more than 100, focusing on a wide range of areas, such as information security, IT services and 5G networking.
Citing the workforce report, Chen said that last year presented a challenge to enterprises in Taiwan and their employees amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which led the company to have employees work from home.
Despite the adjustment to curtail infections, many employees said they had a positive experience working remotely, as they found they were able to work more efficiently, he said.
The workforce report showed that 49 percent of the employees polled said they felt more energized working from home, 39 percent said they felt healthier and 37 percent said they were happier.
The report showed that before the pandemic, only 7 percent of employees in Taiwan worked remotely.
Since the pandemic, 71 percent of them said that online work has boosted their independence, 71 percent said they used teleconferencing more often than before and 70 percent agreed that communication could be improved through new technology.
The report analyzed data collected from more than 14,000 employees in 14 markets in the Asia-Pacific region, with remote working the focus of the questions, Cisco said.
CHIP WAR: Tariffs on Taiwanese chips would prompt companies to move their factories, but not necessarily to the US, unleashing a ‘global cross-sector tariff war’ US President Donald Trump would “shoot himself in the foot” if he follows through on his recent pledge to impose higher tariffs on Taiwanese and other foreign semiconductors entering the US, analysts said. Trump’s plans to raise tariffs on chips manufactured in Taiwan to as high as 100 percent would backfire, macroeconomist Henry Wu (吳嘉隆) said. He would “shoot himself in the foot,” Wu said on Saturday, as such economic measures would lead Taiwanese chip suppliers to pass on additional costs to their US clients and consumers, and ultimately cause another wave of inflation. Trump has claimed that Taiwan took up to
A start-up in Mexico is trying to help get a handle on one coastal city’s plastic waste problem by converting it into gasoline, diesel and other fuels. With less than 10 percent of the world’s plastics being recycled, Petgas’ idea is that rather than letting discarded plastic become waste, it can become productive again as fuel. Petgas developed a machine in the port city of Boca del Rio that uses pyrolysis, a thermodynamic process that heats plastics in the absence of oxygen, breaking it down to produce gasoline, diesel, kerosene, paraffin and coke. Petgas chief technology officer Carlos Parraguirre Diaz said that in
SUPPORT: The government said it would help firms deal with supply disruptions, after Trump signed orders imposing tariffs of 25 percent on imports from Canada and Mexico The government pledged to help companies with operations in Mexico, such as iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), shift production lines and investment if needed to deal with higher US tariffs. The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday announced measures to help local firms cope with the US tariff increases on Canada, Mexico, China and other potential areas. The ministry said that it would establish an investment and trade service center in the US to help Taiwanese firms assess the investment environment in different US states, plan supply chain relocation strategies and
Japan intends to closely monitor the impact on its currency of US President Donald Trump’s new tariffs and is worried about the international fallout from the trade imposts, Japanese Minister of Finance Katsunobu Kato said. “We need to carefully see how the exchange rate and other factors will be affected and what form US monetary policy will take in the future,” Kato said yesterday in an interview with Fuji Television. Japan is very concerned about how the tariffs might impact the global economy, he added. Kato spoke as nations and firms brace for potential repercussions after Trump unleashed the first salvo of
RSS