cisco systems intro

8/2/2019 Cisco Systems Intro

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[CISCO SYSTEMS] November 1, 2011

Introduction:

Cisco, founded in 1984, was originally a switch and router company supplying

its products for networks. During the 1980s it competed directly with Bay

Networks and 3Com. Its work in helping to develop TCP/IP networks and the

Internet has made it the leader in network infrastructure -- hardware, software

and services.

Cisco Systems, Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in

California, United States.

It excels in designing and selling consumer electronics, networking, voice, and

communications technology and services. Cisco has more than 70,000

employees and annual revenue of US$ 40.0 billion as of 2010. The stock was

added to the Dow Jones stock index on June 8, 2009, and is also included in the

S&P 500 index, the Russell 100 index, NASDAQ 100 index and Russell 1000

Stock index.

The corporate time-line:Early years of Cisco Systems Inc.: (1984 1990)

Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, along with Richard Troiano were the founders of

Cisco Systems in 1984. The name "Cisco" was derived from the city name, San

Francisco. One of the earliest products of Cisco was namely; Bosack, a multiple

protocol router. The company's first CEO was Bill Graves, who held the

position from 1987 to 1988. The company went public on February 16th, 1990

and was also listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

Routing and Ethernet switching: (1991 1995)

Cisco systems were the first company to manufacture and sell one of its earliest

invented routers and it went commercially successful in the real world market

too. The router supported multiple network protocols.

Between 1992 and 1994, Cisco has also acquired several companies in Ethernet

switching are, most notably Kalpana, Grand Junction and Crescendo

Communications together forming Catalyst product line. At that time, the


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company envisioned layer 3 routing layer 2 (Ethernet, Token Ring) switching as

complementary functions of different intelligence and architecturethe former

was slow and complex, the latter was fast but simple.

Internet and Silicon Intelligence: (1996

2005)

As the internet protocol became widely adopted, the importance of multi-

protocol routing declined. Nevertheless, Cisco managed to capitalize on the

internet wave, with wide range of products that became vital to internet service

providers and by 1998 gave Cisco de-facto monopoly in this critical market

segment.

In late March, 2000, Cisco became the most valuable company in the world,

with a market capitalization of more than US $500 billion.

The Human Network: (2006Current)

As part of the massive rebranding campaign of 2006, Cisco Systems adopted

the new, shortened name "Cisco", a new slogan and logo that was created in

collaboration with Joe Phenom Finocchiaro and Jerry The King

Kuyper. The changes were meant to make Cisco a "household" brand - a

strategy designed to support the low-end Linksys products and future consumer

products such as Flip Video camera acquired by Cisco in 2009.

Due to lower than expected profit in 2011, Cisco was forced to reduce annual

expenses by $1 billion. The company cut around 3,000 employees with an

early-retirement program who accepted buyout and planned to eliminate as

many as 10,000 jobs (around 14% of the 73,400 total employees before

curtailment).During the 2011 analyst call, Cisco's CEO John Chambers have

called several competitors by name, apparently inaugurating a "black PR"

campaign.

Major Acquisitions:

Cisco acquired a variety of companies to bring in products and talent into the

company. In 19951996 the company completed 11 acquisitions. Several

acquisitions, such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the industry when

they occurred. During the Internet boom in 1999, the company acquired Cerent

Corporation, a start-up company located in Petaluma, California, for about

US$7 billion. It was the most expensive acquisition made by Cisco to date, andonly the acquisition of Scientific Atlanta has been larger. Several acquired


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companies have grown into $1Bn plus business units for Cisco, including LAN

switching, Enterprise Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) platform Webex,

and home networking. The latter came as result of Cisco acquiring Linksys in

2003 and in 2010 was supplemented with new product line dubbed Cisco Valet.

In the recent merger deals, Cisco bought Starent Networks (a mobile technology

company) and Moto Development Group, a product design consulting firm that

helped develop Cisco's Flip video camera.Also in 2010, Cisco became a key

stakeholder in e-Skills Week. In March 2011, Cisco completed the acquisition of

privately held network configuration and change management solutions

company Pari Networks.

Although many buy-ins (such as Crescendo Networks) in 1993 resulted in

acquisition of flagship technology (e.g. Catalyst 6500) to Cisco, many others

have failed - partially or completely. For instance, in 2010 Cisco occupied a

meaningful share of the packet-optical market, revenues were still not on par

with US$7 billion price tag paid in 1999 for Cerent. Some of acquired

technologies (such as Pure Digital in 2010) saw their products discontinued,

while others like Cisco mi are receiving significant criticism.

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