Cisco is facing up to its challenges, says Chambers

12 May 2011

Networking giant Cisco reported third quarter revenues of US$10.9bn, up almost 5pc on last year’s quarter. Profits, however, were down 17.6pc from US$2.2bn last year to US$1.8bn, and CEO John Chambers acknowledge the company is facing challenges.

“This quarter played out as we expected,” said John Chambers, chairman and CEO, Cisco. “We have acknowledged our challenges.

“We know what we have to do. We have a clear game plan, and we are a company with a track record of market-shaping innovation. We thank our shareholders, employees, customers and partners as we transition to the next phase of Cisco.”

It has been an eventful year for Cisco which on the one hand is ramping up to serve the cloud revolution through acquisitions of players like newScale and the launch of communications tablets like the Cius, but on the other is shedding units like camera player Flip which it acquired two years ago for US$590m.

Cisco’s innovation agenda

The networking giant which enables much of the internet as we know it and which was started by a husband and wife team at Stanford’s campus in 1984, is nevertheless pressing on with its R&D agenda.

During the quarter the company announced that one year after it was introduced, the Cisco CRS-3 Carrier Routing System is being adopted faster than was the original CRS-1 platform with 80 customers in more than 30 countries, including AT&T and Comcast.

The company also introduced new security, management, and video solutions to its Borderless Networks and introduced technology innovations across its Data Centre Business Advantage portfolio.

Cisco’s 170-strong R&D operation in Galway is already making significant contributions to the networking giant’s product strategy, especially several unified communications features of Cisco Quad.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com