Thread regarding Cisco Systems Inc. layoffs

Cisco misses out on cloud

At last year's year-end financial call, the CEO said that Cisco would reinvest the cost savings from its restructuring plan into "key priority areas such as security, IoT, collaboration, next generation data center and cloud."

It's been almost 9 months since then. Where is the reinvestment in "cloud"?

Juniper, on the other hand, is making strides in the cloud. I don't think anyone will argue that Amazon Web Services (AWS) is not a leader in the cloud, so when Juniper Networks partnered with AWS they're making their name more synonymous with the cloud than Cisco is.

If you look at AWS's web site, you can find this info:

Juniper Networks on AWS

AWS helps organizations achieve greater business agility and flexibility. However, unpredictable access to data and applications on AWS, combined with deficient security solutions, can hinder a business’s ability to thrive in the cloud.

Juniper Networks helps organizations overcome these challenges with a single solution. With the vSRX Virtual Firewall, organizations can achieve secure, high-performance connectivity for their AWS workloads while maintaining a consistent security posture, both on-premises and in the cloud.

Where is Cisco? Cisco could have made an agreement to sell Cisco boxes to AWS for the same costs as internal Cisco pricing and made money on the SDN services & software. Then, instead of being Juniper being advertised on AWS, it would be Cisco.

Oh well. Time to sell my Cisco stock once the next round of dividends are paid out.

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| 2699 views | | 11 replies (last April 20, 2017) | Reply
Post ID: @OP+MRKGD5z

11 replies (most recent on top)

1scf - your example is further proof of the failures of this leadership team and that of the board to course correct. The right innovative leadership team inspires and builds an organization that will focus on the right activities to build a strong company rather than deceptive infighting for what will ultimately amount to fighting for "scraps"....just one of the many examples of the future Harvard business cases Cisco will be generating without a major course direction in leadership.

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Post ID: @2eko+MRKGD5z

These things are all obvious unfortunately the board is the barrier.

You are severely underestimating the effects of infighting at the first levels of leadership (TLs and second level managers and above.) I don't miss the calls from random teams that go "we are taking over your program so if you could just send us all your work and stop working on this program we'd appreciate it" when senior management had not approved such a move. Did this ever work?

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Post ID: @1scf+MRKGD5z

Hik - 100% correct. I will only add that the sorely needed new leaders with actual innovation leadership skills need to also treat employees as stake holders to overall success again. These things are all obvious unfortunately the board is the barrier. Cisco will at least be many relevant Harvard business cases on how not to run a company.

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Post ID: @1sxj+MRKGD5z

We are Cisco and we Su€k

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Post ID: @1pgz+MRKGD5z

There was nothing to miss. It's already has all changed.

I can agree that time change, but there is something to miss. Amazon is making money in the cloud space. Juniper may be the last name people think of in cloud, but they're associated with Amazon and are continuing to earn revenue. Cisco, on the other hand, missed the boat with cloud. Instead of partnering with Amazon, they let Juniper get embedded with Amazon.

Cisco could have done as good or better than Juniper.

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Post ID: @1bap+MRKGD5z

At this moment, the only way to get rid of Cisco ELT, and SVPs is by means of shareholders' revolt from big institutional/activist shareholder.

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Post ID: @1lyw+MRKGD5z

Spark, ACI, Tetration, APIC-EM. New products firing on all 4 cylinders.

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Post ID: @1rts+MRKGD5z

Unlike the VoIP paradigm shift in the early 2000's Cisco has no influence/leverage in the cloud/software/open-source era. Cisco is stuck in obsolescence because the clueless bean counter ELT has no technical visions besides riding the legacy hardware business to its last breath. They attempt to look cool by getting behind OpenStack & SDN. Unfortunately these initiatives are fading fast. The shift to bare metal/container is making OpenStack irrelevant. With the transport pipe being commoditized (dirt cheap 10GE, 40GE, 100GE, >) why would anyone want the headache/complexity of SDN/ACI? when their networks are barely used? SDN might find adoption with the largest SPs oltherwise it's just a novel concept. Of course these fat cats are brain dead to see that.

it's such a joke when Cisco talks about "innovation" such as Spark Boark & Tetration. The SVP is wildly enthused about his fancy board that can be easily replaced by a $100 white board & a camera phone. Tetration is a big fat dinosaur that takes 2 full racks of expensive junks to display a few simple histograms It's basically a clunky data collector but leave it to the Cisco marketing genius to call it analytics. The cloud business is a hodgepodge collection of WebEx, Spark, Jasper, Meraki, security, and AS managed services that has no way to integrate with each other. Cloud security is probably the only game left that has a chance of survival.

Cisco board needs to make the tough but necessary decisions. Get rid of the incompetent ELT,, SVPs VPs. Bring in technical leaders with real industry knowledge & proven experience in delivering software proudcts to market. Shed the legacy BUs for long term gains. Invest in R&D and stop the hodgepodge acquisition strategies and rid of the clueless dude in charge. Learn from MS, AMZ, FB, Google. They are all being run by people with technical visions and business acumen. It will be a painful few years but still better than becoming the next Kodak.

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Post ID: @hik+MRKGD5z

Cisco is too busy being agile. Cool "Story" bro.

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Post ID: @kfd+MRKGD5z

It's not missing out on anything, it's just the natural element of evolution; but simply happening now on another phase of a long history of technological shifting.

That might sound like something quoted from Woodstock, but think about networks and compute and where the evolution is, like maybe you are actually at Woodstock; just for a minute here:

Decades, back to the '60s IBM card reader, have required the compute and storage to morph into today's ample abundance of a $15 dollar 16Gig usb storage keychain dongle.

The network component morphed over those decades similarly to address the simple yet complex requirement of enabling a big private data center to have a big, reliable, reserved only for themselves, network connection.

What I am saying is, maybe there really is nothing to miss. Huh? Look at the $15 16G keychain storage dongle. How much would have that cost back in 1995? How many IBM TN3270 cluster controllers are now in landfills?

Maybe there is really nothing to miss because with the consolidation to virtualization, all the old big dedicated network infrastructures to thousands of to-be-virtualized mainframes and server farms just won't be needed.

Maybe these are all Woodstock-like thoughts, but trying to simply say maybe there is truly nothing to miss. It's finally happening that all that is needed is a big VM with a virual 10G ethernet port for $15 a month, with Amazon credit card. That's the replacement for the TN3270 cluster controller and a $6 million annual networking budget to support it, and 40+ data center employees. Now it's four folks who can code and tweak VMs, few vdmk files, an Amazon credit card to pay for the compute.

There was nothing to miss. It's already has all changed.

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Post ID: @nrm+MRKGD5z

Juniper is the last name anyone thinks of in cloud. They're a boring infrastructure company who are desperately trying to put their name on anything modern. Just like Cisco!

The problem Cisco has is none of its core portfolio is business relevant. To patch that problem some marketing droid creates a bunch of PowerPoint to convince customers, AM's and SE's that there is a solution and it'll solve all known business problems (see: Intercloud). These projects instantly fail because there's nothing behind the covers (or what's there is no good).

Cisco is doomed but I wouldn't look enviously at Juniper!

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Post ID: @ilj+MRKGD5z

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