Great article! This reporter gets it...
https://www.futuriom.com/articles/news/why-cisco-is-in-existential-crisis/2020/08
9 replies (most recent on top)
look at the board.... they are even worse and more intellectually geriatric than the existing leadership team. it's like Huawei has bribed them to destroy Cisco from inside.
that article makes some good points but also some pretty weak ones. Zoom is kicking webex's butt? i don't think so. Arista, while yes they have taken some market share, they aren't exactly destroying it either. vmware? last i checked they were laying people off. Cloud, yes, they are taking some business but idk if i would agree that they are direct competitors. Equinix, Amazon, Microsoft, Google...those are all customers. If anything they are disruptors, causing the market to shift. But to say they are demolishing Cisco, is a little absurd.
I have a CCNA certificate and can't find job. My dad got his CCNA certificate 21 years ago and got a job 4 days after earning his CCNA certificate. What happened?
Need activist investor to kick Cr to curb. Board is his buddies.
Indeed, Cisco's huge problem was it was dominant enough to actually stop shifting market trends. you can't stand in the way of that, that was a losing business strategy.
I give you webex, a visionary collaboration as a service company. Cisco acquires it and... puts it under the leadership of on-premise Unified Communication gearheads that stop the Webex revolution to keep milking the old market.
I give you TailF an orchestration company that wanted to create a universal model for network configuration application, something strategic for the service provider market. but Cisco focused TailF on proprietary orchestration, yet again missing the opportunity by trying to stop inevitable market change.
or Viptela... their SD-WAN product was the best and big companies like Gap and IBM adopted it, so Cisco bought them... and completely stalled them by forcing the product to run on IOSXE and ISRs.
If you can't do the politics and powerpoints, you are eventually doomed at this company.
Isn't this the case in any major corporation? It's like everyone is in a race. The only way to win and advance into next round is to outrun them. If you don't, them stomp you and let you bleed because it's k–l or be k–led out there.
That is one of the most accurate articles written about Cisco that I have read! Cisco needs its own version of Satya Nadella or Elon Musk - someone who really understands technology instead of a Math major who doesn't get it after five years on the job!
Cisco should focus on security. The federal government is in dire need of huge improvements across the board. Become a "defense contractor" with regard to systems security. Become THE security company for world governments.
Reading these LR board posts brings back many memories.
I was Blue Badge for 18 years. Last four were some of the most politically unnerving and stressful years. Getting promoted to high level individual contributor is great financially but a nightmare if not a politician. Have to get funded, do the technical work, and do the political schmooze.
If you can't do the politics and powerpoints, you are eventually doomed at this company. It took me a good year after LR to decompress and trust my new job leadership. There are some honestly good people out there, but also alot of jerks way up the food chain that shouls have been politicians or news anchors. Sadly Cisco is no longer the technology innovator in the late 90s/2000s. We make it a point to NOT include any other function of our IT budget as Cisco gear, with the exception of current switches.
The politicians and newscasters are sadly going to bleed this company dry. If you truly are a techology person, consider what you want to be doing in five years.