This afternoon Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers will present the keynote address at the 2009 International Consumer Electronics Show (view live webcast of his keynote 3 - 4 p.m. Pacific Time).
However, while awaiting Chambers' keynote perhaps you may wish to ponder my message below to Cisco:
 Singer, comedian and actor - Al Jolson, cowrote and sang a 1928 hit song titled - Back in Your Own Backyard (a favorite of mine).
It is the personal opinion of yours truly that the song's lyrics offer a "profound message" to Cisco: Read more The bird with feathers of blue |
The above photograph shows Cisco chairman John Chambers and Satyam chairman B. Ramalinga Raju announcing a collaboration that evolved into Satyam Global LifeNet (SGL), a joint venture between Cisco and Satyam.
In his resignation letter this week, Satyam chairman B. Ramalinga Raju listed the following financial fraud irregularities on the books of Satyam Computer Services: Read more
This week Cisco released the January 2009 net new worldwide CCIE count. According to Dual CCIE #18532 Security/Routing and Switching - George Morton, Ph. D:
 "The trend from the last update done in November 2008 has continued to show that the growth in CCIEs is coming from outside the U.S. Using a five month average the growth during this period was just above the five month average. Read more "Now for the U.S. you could argue that Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. played a role, and you might be right; but then why did Europe have more CCIEs in the same period?" |
Cisco product placements seem to be everywhere in Hollywood these days, catching both TV and movie viewers' attention.
 In the recently released hit movie comedy, Yes Man, starring the hilariously funny Jim Carrey, a Cisco IP phone catches everbody's eye as Carrey's character, a bank loan officer named Carl Allen, rubber-stamps YES on all loan applications that cross his desk for approval, regardless of a loan's credit risk.
Approving those hundreds of loans eventually made Carrey's character the top loan producer for the bank earning him a promotion "upstairs to corporate," along with a fat pay raise. |
At the 2 second timemark in the Yes Man Movie video trailer below, you can see a Cisco IP phone prominently featured on the bank desk of Jim Carrey's character, a bank loan officer. Read more
Cisco has quietly activated a Manufacturing Crisis Management Team (MCMT) as the JPMorgan Global Manufacturing PMI (Purchasing Managers Index) posted its weakest ever reading:
Source: JPMorgan and Markit Economics in association with ISM and IFPSM.
According to a Shipping Digest article:
Fears of unprecedented disruptions to supply chains have prompted shippers to create formal crisis-management teams to keep their operations moving as the global recession worsens.
 After finishing a three-week tour to discuss the fallout of the financial crisis with 250 executives at 150 companies around the world, Gary Lynch - Global Risk Intelligence Strategies and Resiliency Solutions Practice Leader Marsh, Inc. states: Read more "I don’t want to overstate anything, but this is the first time I’ve ever really seen fear." |
Cisco to customers: We only support ASA IPsec LAN-to-LAN VPNs with other Cisco peers.
Cisco has created puzzlement among network engineers as well as scorn from a competitor with regard to a potential interoperability support issue that was noticed by a Triple CCIE in the Cisco Security Appliance Command Line Configuration Guide, Version 8.0:
| Configuring LAN-to-LAN IPSec VPNs Read more A LAN-to-LAN VPN connects networks in different geographic locations. ASAs support IPsec LAN-to-LAN VPNs with other Cisco peers. Because we adhere to VPN industry standards, ASAs may work with other vendors' peers in LAN-to-LAN VPNs; however, we do not support them. |
In the opinion of yours truly, a very eye-catching critical salvo was fired this week at Cisco's much ballyhooed consumer market hype:
 "In order for Cisco to compete with Samsung, Sony and even Apple, the company would need to rewire its entire DNA, and unfortunately, it ain’t got the skills," said Om Malik - Founder and Senior Writer of the emerging technology news site GigaOM.
"Cisco has a checkered past when it comes to diversification into new markets. Lets face it: Cisco’s skills are in selling equipment to corporations and the government, which is why their push into telepresence (video conferencing) and data center-related equipment makes a lot of sense. Read more "How does a company that gets big fat margins from selling expensive equipment (and paying its sales team accordingly) live with the razor-thin margins of consumer entertainment gear? For Cisco this would like climbing Mount Everest without an oxygen tank." |
 Stumbled upon a Cisco PowerPoint Presentation dated Nov. 17, 2008 that astonishingly revealed 1% of Cisco products generated an incredible 50% of all Cisco product revenue.
Moving further down the Cisco food chain, an additional 46% of Cisco products generated only 30% more in Cisco product revenue. Read more Finally at the very, very bottom rung of Cisco's amazing money making machine, the majority - 53% of Cisco products, generated just a mere 20% of Cisco product revenue. |
Reflecting back upon on all things Cisco over the past year, it appears that 2008's most fascinating video about Cisco has vanished.
 Venture Hacks in a blog posting headlined "Terminating Cisco Founders," featured a rare video interviewing Don Valentine - founder of Sequoia Capital as well as Cisco co-founders Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner about their termination from Cisco. Read more You may know that Sequoia helped fund Cisco at the very beginning. However, the video was taken down by Google, according to an update to the Venture Hacks post. The post still has quotes from the video. However, yours truly believes that I have solved the mystery as to why the Google video went missing ... |
 The "perp" in an $8 million Cisco SMARTnet scam, Steven Edward Miller age 38, pled guilty last week before United States District Judge Michael W. Mosman in Portland, Oregon, to one count of money laundering and one count of mail fraud. Miller faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for the money laundering conviction and simultaneously faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for the mail fraud conviction. |
 The most successful rock and roll instrumentalist of all time - Duane Eddy, had a 1959 top ten hit song titled - Forty Miles Of Bad Road (a genuine personal favorite of mine which peaked at #9), and today it could very well be the "theme song" for the long and rough road to the finish line that has become "di rigeur" for the Brocade - Foundry merger. Read more Below is a recap of the long and bumpy road leading up to the Brocade - Foundry merger: |
Described as one of the notable trends in the Cisco 2008 Annual Security Report that was released this week, Cisco security researchers said threats originating from legitimate domains grew 90%, nearly double the rate in 2007.
The following provides a "quick snapshot" of the security findings contained in Cisco's report:
Diagram below visually details the online threat arena, where the entire Web ecosystem comes into play. Read more
Despite Alcatel-Lucent's planned job cuts and new focus on three market sectors (link to story), some analysts believe the equipment maker still has a ways to go to get back into a healthy state. RBC Capital Markets Managing Director - Mark Sue believes there's no real improvement in the outlook for Alcatel-Lucent, and if anything the market for telecom equipment could decline by between -8% and -12% for 2009 in constant currency. Read more
Today it appears Ashlee Vance of The New York Times has very good news for Cisco, especially when one considers the "key findings" of Ashlee's report on the Intel-sponsored survey:
Internet Reliance in Today’s Economy Read more
It appears Nortel's "penny stock price status" is a clear disadvantage when it comes to being listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). According to Section 802.00 of the NYSE Listed Company Manual, the price of Nortel common stock has specifically violated Section 802.01C:
"A company will be considered to be below compliance standards if the average closing price of a security as reported on the consolidated tape is less than $1.00 over a consecutive 30 trading-day period."
Nortel will be delisted from the NYSE should it fail to "cure" its stock price deficiency. Read more
The Hewlett-Packard Company will announce today that according to the Dell’Oro Group Q3'08 Switched Ethernet Report December 2008, its HP ProCurve networking division grew worldwide switched Layer 2 through Layer 7 port shipments by 25.8% in the third calendar quarter of 2008 compared to the same period in 2007. The industry growth rate for this period was only 6.6%. Read more
In his research note to yours truly today, RBC Capital Markets Managing Director - Mark Sue said Alcatel-Lucent this Friday could be announcing some strategic changes, including killing off its WiMAX division, reducing spend on parts of its wireless business - such as CDMA - and making some layoffs. Read more
 Reading today's story in Network World about Cisco's new consumer push, made me think of 4-time Academy Award-winning lyricist and songwriter - Sammy Cahn.
Mr. Cahn is famous for writing the lyrics to a No. #1 hit song of the 1940s - I've Heard That Song Before (a song that happens to be a personal favorite of mine). The song begins with the following well-known lyrics: |
It seems to me I've heard that song before, it's from an old familiar score, I know it well, that melody! Read more
Tomorrow, open-source routing vendor Vyatta will announce its new networking appliance, the Vyatta 2502, upping the ante in its competition with Cisco.
According to the Vyatta announcement, its new 2502 network appliance takes advantage of hardware technology advances to deliver 2.4 GHz dual-core forwarding performance as well as large memory size. Pricing on the new appliance will start at $2,747. Read more
The executive responsible for processing Cisco scrap (the return of used equipment under Cisco trade-ins and take-back/recycling programs) gave a fascinating interview to the EcoInnovator blog.
 In less than 3-years, Dan Gilbert - Cisco Vice President for Reverse Logistics, turned 6 million pounds of Cisco product returns (scrap equivalent to 12 football fields filled knee-deep) from an $8 million expense into a profit center that contributed $100 million to the Cisco bottom line last year. Read more According to Gilbert, "One of the myths is that you should treat all returns the same, the reality is there is a huge variation in the products you receive. You really have to dig into the details." |
About Brad Reese on Cisco
Brad Reese cofounded BradReese.Com Cisco Refurbished which offers one year warranties on Cisco Refurbished and Cisco Repair.
Contact him.
Brad's blogroll
Brad Reese on Cisco archive.
Cisco Subnet
The opinions expressed in this Weblog are those of the writer and may not represent the opinions of Network World.
|
|
