As @db points out, Cisco has been losing market share for a long time. Cisco saw increasing revenue up until 2023 because the markets grew faster than Cisco was shrinking. After that Cisco's revenue shrank even with another $4B/yr in revenue from Splunk. The operating income numbers tanked too. Even Cisco's fairly recent stock price peak near the 2000 high the market cap was near $250B lower due to stock buybacks. Add in inflation impacts and all of this becomes even worse.
8 replies (most recent on top)
When I was at Cisco I was always on tenterhooks whenever I sold a “solution” that involved a bunch of different stuff working together. You just knew you’d have a ton of post sales problems TAC issues afterwards that would consume all of your time and management didn’t give a sh-t ‘cos they’d gotten their number from the sale. The post sales is YOUR problem, the AM and SE, whilst management want their next big deal.
The point is NOT "is CISCO losing market share." The real point is "How fast is CISCO losing market share in various area?" I think in DC area - the rate is very slow. But in Collab - it is fast and in SBG it is like a roller downhill...
Cisco managed to lose its top position in the DC market to Arista in the US.
Cisco has been losing marketshare in networking for over 10 years. Webex fell off the map completely into the Avaya spaces, goto, bluejeans abyss. It used to be that a customer wouldn't get fired for buying Cisco, now its more like you are fired for still buying Cisco. I can't help but Chuckle when someone actually renews DNA subscriptions or if I hear they bought a Cisco firewall. Cisco is doing exactly what they said they were going to do - They want to be a software company. Unfortunately that means their hardware platforms have fallen apart.
@OP YES
This is a rhetorical question.
Well, if Cisco is losing share, you know what the solution is, right?
Answer: LR’s.
There is no problem that cannot be solved by more LR’s.
Unfortunately, Cisco will probably continue to acquire and slowly dismantle smaller companies. It may be a very long time before this old whale finally beaches itself.