5.5.

11

Title:
Cisco – the network matters

Summary & article:

Cisco has been in a state of navel-gazing recently, since their admission that mistakes
have been made in the business strategy.

Cisco has shut down the Flip camcorder business and exited from the consumer
products market, and is now concentrating on five areas that are driving the growth of
networks and the Internet:

1. Core routers, core switches and services.

2. Collaboration.
3. Datacentre virtualisation and cloud computing.
4. Video communications.
5. Architectures for business transformation.

The growth of Cisco from a $1.2 billion in 1995 to a $40 billion company this year
has been driven by acquisition, and as a commentator from Risk Capital Partners
summed up some acquisition deals; “It is scary how often deals are done for reasons
of ego or narcissism”.

The changes that Cisco is implementing over the next fiscal year include the
restructuring of worldwide Field Operations, Cisco Services, Cisco Engineering, and
Enterprise & Service Provider & Emerging Countries cross-functional Councils.

“The market is driving towards simplification and it’s why the network matters…it’s
time to simplify the way we execute our strategy…” Said Cisco Chairman and CEO
John Chambers.

Perhaps the business strategy could have been thought through before this upheaval,
however at Hardware.com we are keen that Cisco returns to its core capability in
producing network hardware, including routers and switches, that run the network.

Image - Cisco-John-Chambers.jpg