Summary
Cisco attacks ANY technology market that they think is old school, and legacy in nature. They will work hard to create disruptive technology that is a game changer for the customers. They attack conventional wisdom, and destroy traditional competitors in the new field (which they title Advanced Technology Projects/products). Cisco will enter new markets if they know that it can add at least $1,000,000 of new revenue to Cisco (plus recurring revenue growth for services as a bonus). This market is up to 100 times this number globally. Look out IBM. I think that IBM is their main target. Dell, and HP are stepping stones. I would be more than welcome to take a GLG call to back up my claims here.
Analysis
Cisco attacks ANY technology market that they think is old school, and legacy in nature. They will work hard to create disruptive technology that is a game changer for the customers. They attack conventional wisdom, and destroy traditional competitors in the new field (which they title Advanced Technology Projects/products). Cisco will enter new markets if they know that it can add at least $1,000,000 of new revenue to Cisco (plus recurring revenue growth for services as a bonus). Look out IBM. I think that IBM is their main target. Dell, and HP are stepping stones.
This will be a long battle. Do NOT underestimate Cisco. Everone that does ends up on the ash heap of history. Cisco has taken on some of the largest technology companies globally and almost single handed put them out of business.. Ever heard of Nortel? Thought you have.. Avaya is on the rocks. The other players are losing market share. Every ATP entry has been successful for Cisco. Hard record to overlook.
The traditional IT resume builders (working for companies that have nice budgets) have been total Cisco Kool-Aid drinkers, will continue to give special treatment to Cisco. They have moved into the Data Center field. They understand easy the "Unified Data Center" concept.
IBM is the only company who can really hold back Cisco. Dell and HP will not stop Cisco. They waited on the sidelines when the obvious theory of building a Unified Data Center strategy was clear to any IT future thinker to see. Cisco got lucky with VMWare approached Cisco to see if their APIs could be of use (the Cisco produced Nexus switching solutions which were products looking for a market to serve). Cisco was smart enough to jump on this as something to save their Data Center switching business (which was in decline due to VMWare, and blade servers lowering switching "iron" requirements). This alliance resulted in embedded code as a anchor for a overall Unified Strategy design.
Just like Arlen Specter, Cisco "switched parties" to survive the data center shifts to virtual, blade technology, and virtual I/O technology. In this case Cisco is not some old coot who seek to "live another day". Cisco had what they knew is the key to Billions of US$ growth.
They added some of their other tech, manufacturing outsourcing ability, and came up with Unified Data Center before anyone else. They were transparent to all what they were doing. Even with that Transparency, IBM, HP, and Dell did not get it, and were blind. That in itself should tell you something. They are not ready to fight this. They will have to react for their survival. IBM will survive, even thrive on thanks to Cisco if they know how to react. Others, we will see.
Cisco can goof this up. If they have too many headhunter retreads on staff to get this rolled out, they will slip. If they show total pride (as they have been known on ocasion to be) to their new potential customers, they will slip. One slip and they will lose their advantage. They have to go from zero percent market share to 20-40% in order to be viewed as a top player. This is hard if you have the wrong management, field team, and channel strategy. In other ATP entries, Cisco still became the top player in spite of themselves and critical blunders. The data center space will not be so open to any errors.
I would be more than welcome to take a GLG call to back up my claims. I know it would be worth your research.
