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Cisco Systems

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Cisco Systems,lnc.
Type Public
NASDAQ: CSCO
SEHK: 4333
Dow Jones Industrial Average Component
S&P 500 Component
Industry Computer networking
Founded San Francisco, California (1984)
Founder(s) Len Bosack
Sandy Lerner
Richard Troiano
Headquarters San Jose, California, U.S. 1
Area served Worldwide
Key people John T. Chambers
(Chairman & CEO)
Products Networking Device
Network Management
Cisco IOS and NX-OS Software
Interface and Module
Optical networking
Storage area networks
Wireless, Telepresence, VOIP, Security
Datacenter
List of Cisco Products
Revenue ▲ US$40 billion (2010)2
Operating income ▲ US$7.322 billion (2009)2
Net income ▲ US$6.134 billion (2009)2
Total assets ▲ US$68.128 billion (2009)2
Total equity ▲ US$38.647 billion (2009)2
Employees 63,756 (October 2009)3
Subsidiaries List of acquisitions
Website Cisco.com
"Cisco" redirects here. For other uses, see Cisco (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with Sysco.

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO, SEHK: 4333) is an American multinational corporation that designs and sells consumer electronics, networking and communications technology and services. Headquartered in California, Cisco has more than 65,000 employees and annual revenue of US$36.11 billion as of 2009. The stock was added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average on June 8, 2009, and is also included in the S&P 500 Index the Russell 1000 Index, NASDAQ100 Index and the Russell 1000 Growth Stock Index.4 Cisco is one of the world's biggest technology corporations.

Contents

Corporate history

One of the many buildings on the Cisco Systems campus in San Jose

Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married couple who worked as computer operations staff members at Stanford University, later joined by Richard Troiano, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner moved on to direct computer services at Schlumberger, moving full time to Cisco in 1987. The name "Cisco" was derived from the city name, San Francisco, which is why the company's engineers insisted on using the lower case "cisco" in the early days. For Cisco's first product, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software originally written some years before by William Yeager, another Stanford employee who later joined Sun Microsystems. The company's first CEO was Bill Graves, who held the position from 1987 to 1988.5 In 1988, John Morgridge was appointed CEO, and was succeeded in 1995 by John Chambers.

While Cisco was not the first company to develop and sell a router,6 it was one of the first to sell commercially successful routers supporting multiple network protocols.7 As the Internet Protocol (IP) became widely adopted, the importance of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's largest routers are primarily used to deliver IP packets.

In 1990, the company was listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Lerner was fired; as a result Bosack quit after receiving $200 million. Most of those profits were given to charities and the two later divorced.

Cisco acquired a variety of companies to bring in products and talent into the company. Several acquisitions, such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the industry when they occurred. During the Internet boom in 1999, the company acquired Cerent Corporation, a start-up company located in Petaluma, California, for about US$7 billion. It was the most expensive acquisition made by Cisco to date, and only the acquisition of Scientific-Atlanta has been larger. Several acquired companies have grown into $1Bn+ business units for Cisco, including LAN switching, Enterprise Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP), and home networking. Cisco acquired Linksys in 2003. In 2010, Cisco bought Moto Development Group, a product design consulting firm that helped develop Cisco's Flip video camera.8

In late March 2000, at the height of the dot-com boom, Cisco was the most valuable company in the world, with a market capitalization of more than US$500 billion.910 In July 2009, with a market cap of about US$108.03 billion,11 it is still one of the most valuable companies.12 CSCO was voted stock of the decade on NASDAQ, but no one knows when.citation needed

The company was a 2002-03 recipient of the Ron Brown Award,citation needed a U.S. presidential honor to recognize companies "for the exemplary quality of their relationships with employees and communities".

Notable products and services

Hardware

A Cisco ASM/2-32EM router deployed at CERN in 1987.

Software

VoIP services

Cisco became a major provider of Voice over IP to enterprises, and is now moving into the home user market through its acquisitions of Scientific Atlanta and Linksys. Scientific Atlanta provides VoIP equipment to cable service providers such as Time Warner, Cablevision, Rogers Communications, UPC, and others; Linksys has partnered with companies such as Skype and Yahoo to integrate consumer VoIP services with wireless and cordless phones.

Hosted Collaboration Solution

Cisco partners can now offer cloud-based services based on Cisco’s virtualized Unified Computing System (UCS). A part of the Cisco Unified Services Delivery Solution, it will include hosted versions of Cisco Unified Communications Manager (UCM), Cisco Unified Contact Center, Cisco Unified Mobility, Cisco Unified Presence, Cisco Unity Connection (unified messaging), and Cisco Webex Meeting Center.13

Cisco Career Certifications

Main article: Cisco Career Certifications

Cisco Systems also sponsors a line of IT Professional certifications for Cisco products. There are five levels of certification: Entry, Associate, Professional, Expert, and recently Architect, as well as eight different paths, Routing & Switching, Design, Network Security, Service Provider, the newly introduced Service Provider Operations, Storage Networking, Voice, and Wireless.

Criticisms and controversy

China

Cisco has been criticized for its involvement in censorship in the People's Republic of China.14 According to author Ethan Gutmann, Cisco and other telecommunications equipment providers supplied the Chinese government with surveillance and Internet infrastructure equipment that is used to block Internet websites and track Chinese on-line activities. Cisco says that it does not customize or develop specialized or unique filtering capabilities to enable governments to block access to information and that it sells the same equipment in China as it sells worldwide.15

Wired News had uncovered a leaked, confidential Cisco powerpoint presentation that details the commercial opportunities of the Golden Shield Project of Internet control.16 In her article, journalist Sarah Stirland accuses Cisco of marketing its technology "specifically as a tool of repression."

Shareholder class action lawsuit against Cisco

On August 18, 2006 Cisco reached a settlement in a long-standing class action lawsuit that originated in 2001. "The original suit, filed April 20, 2001, claimed that the company made misleading statements, or omitted statements of material fact, that were relied on by purchasers of Cisco stock. It also alleged that the individual defendants sold Cisco stock while in possession of material, non-public information. Cisco denied all allegations in the suit."17 While Cisco denies all wrongdoing in the suit, it agreed to settle with the plaintiffs. Cisco's liability insurers, its directors, and officers paid the plaintiffs US$91.75 million to settle the suit.18

Cisco's Brazil Tax Fraud Investigation

On October 16, 2007, the Brazilian Federal Police and Brazilian Receita Federal (equivalent to the American IRS) under the "Persona Operation" uncovered an alleged tax fraud scheme employed by Cisco Systems since 2002 that exempted the company from paying over R$1.5 billion (US$824 million) in taxes.1920

Multiven's Antitrust Lawsuit Against Cisco Systems, Inc.

On December 1, 2008, Multiven filed an antitrust lawsuit21222324252627 against Cisco Systems, Inc. in an effort to open up the network maintenance services marketplace for Cisco equipment, promote competition and ensure consumer choice and value. Multiven’s complaint alleges that Cisco harmed Multiven and consumers by bundling and tying bug fixes/patches and updates for its operating system software to its maintenance services (SMARTnet) and through a series of other illegal exclusionary and anticompetitive acts designed to maintain Cisco’s alleged monopoly in the network maintenance services market for Cisco networking equipment.

Free Software Foundation suit

On December 11, 2008, the Free Software Foundation filed suit against Cisco (see FSF vs. Cisco) regarding Cisco's failure to comply with the GPL and LGPL license models and make the applicable source code publicly available.28 On May 20, 2009, Cisco settled this lawsuit by complying with FSF licensing terms and making a monetary contribution to the FSF.29

See also

San Francisco Bay Area portal
Companies portal
  • MSP Partners—an SMB-Channel education program founded in part by Cisco

Notes

  1. ^ "A special report on innovation in emerging markets: The world turned upside down". The Economist. http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15879369. Retrieved 2010-08-14. 
  2. ^ a b c d e "Cisco Fiscal Year 2009 Earnings". Cisco Systems. 2009-07-27. http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2009/fin_080509.html. Retrieved 2009-07-27. 
  3. ^ "News@Cisco -> Fact Sheet". Cisco Systems. http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/corpinfo/factsheet.html. Retrieved 2010-08-14. 
  4. ^ Browning, E.S. (2009-06-01). "Travelers, Cisco Replace Citi, GM in Dow". Wall Street Journal (Dow Jones & Company, Inc). http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124386244318072033.html. Retrieved 2009-06-02. 
  5. ^ "Cisco's Acquisition Strategy". Case Studies In Business Strategy (ICMR) IV: 2. January 2004. BSTR083. http://www.icmrindia.org/casestudies/catalogue/Business%20Strategy2/BSTR083.htm. Retrieved 21 December 2009. 
  6. ^ "I, Cringely . NerdTV . Transcript | PBS". Pbs.org. http://www.pbs.org/cringely/nerdtv/transcripts/013.html. Retrieved 2008-11-13. 
  7. ^ Cisco claim of first multi-protocol router. Interview. The Evolution of Access Routing. June 14, 2004. Retrieved on 2009-01-04.
  8. ^ By Jim Duffy, NetworkWorld. "Cisco Buys Moto -- no, not that Moto." May 18, 2010.
  9. ^ "Cisco pushes past Microsoft in market value". CBS Marketwatch. 2000-03-25. http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/cisco-pushes-past-microsoft-market/story.aspx?guid=%7BFA6BADEF%2D05F2%2D4169%2DADDA%2D12E9D17C4433%7D. Retrieved 2007-01-25. 
  10. ^ "Cisco replaces Microsoft as world's most valuable company". Reuters (The Indian Express). 2000-03-25. http://www.expressindia.com/ie/daily/20000326/ibu26043.html. Retrieved 2007-01-25. 
  11. ^ Cisco Systems Summary
  12. ^ Fost, Dan (2006-05-05). "Chron 200 Market capitalization". San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/05/05/BUC200MARKETCAP.DTL. Retrieved 2007-01-25. 
  13. ^ "Cisco Launches Hosted Collaboration Solution". UCStrategies.com. 2010-07-02. http://www.ucstrategies.com/news-analysis/cisco-launches-hosted-collaboration-solution.aspx. 
  14. ^ "FRONTLINE: the tank man: the struggle to control information | PBS". Pbs.org. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tankman/internet/. Retrieved 2008-11-13. 
  15. ^ Earnhardt, John (2006-02-15). "Cisco Testimony Before House International Relations Subcommittee". Cisco Systems, Inc.. http://blogs.cisco.com/gov/2006/02/cisco_testimony_before_house_i.html. Retrieved 2007-01-25. 
  16. ^ Stirland, Sarah (2008-05-20). "Cisco Leak: ‘Great Firewall’ of China Was a Chance to Sell More Routers". http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/05/leaked-cisco-do/. Retrieved 2009-06-27. 
  17. ^ Cisco Systems, Inc. (2006-08-18). "Cisco Shareholder Class Action Lawsuit Resolved". Press release. http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2006/corp_081806.html. Retrieved 2007-01-25. 
  18. ^ "Cisco resolves class action lawsuit". Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal. 2006-08-18. http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2006/08/14/daily75.html. Retrieved 2007-01-25. 
  19. ^ "Cisco offices raided, executives arrested in Brazil: reports". NetworkWorld. 2007-10-16. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/101607-cisco-brazil-arrests.html?page=1. Retrieved 2007-10-16. 
  20. ^ International Herald Tribune (2007-10-17). "Brazilian tax authorities raid, close Cisco System's offices in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro". Press release. http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/10/17/business/LA-FIN-Brazil-Cisco.php. Retrieved 2007-10-17. 
  21. ^ "Multiven Sues Cisco". lightreading. 2008-12-01. http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=168775. Retrieved 2008-12-02. 
  22. ^ "Net maintenance provider sues Cisco over allegedly monopolistic SMARTnet". NetworkWorld.. 2008-12-01. http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/35852. Retrieved 2008-12-02. 
  23. ^ "Cisco Accused Of Monopoly In Antitrust Lawsuit". ChannelWeb. 2008-12-02. http://www.crn.com/networking/212201523. Retrieved 2008-12-02. 
  24. ^ Multiven, Inc. (2008-12-01). "Multiven Files Antitrust Lawsuit Against Cisco Systems, Inc.". Press release. http://multiven.com/news?article_id=12. Retrieved 2008-12-01. 
  25. ^ "Cisco Systems hit with antitrust lawsuit". SearchITChannel. 2008-12-04. http://searchitchannel.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid96_gci1341067,00.html?track=sy540. Retrieved 2008-12-04. 
  26. ^ "Lawsuit: Cisco blocks outsider gear maintenance". fiercetelecom. 2008-12-03. http://www.fiercetelecom.com/story/lawsuit-cisco-blocks-outsider-gear-maintenance/2008-12-03. Retrieved 2008-12-03. 
  27. ^ "Multiven Files Antitrust Lawsuit Against Cisco". Yahoo News. 2008-12-05. http://uk.news.yahoo.com/7/20081205/ttc-multiven-files-antitrust-lawsuit-aga-78e70a2.html. Retrieved 2008-12-05. 
  28. ^ Free Software Foundation (December 11, 2008). "Free Software Foundation Files Suit Against Cisco For GPL Violations". Press release. http://www.fsf.org/news/2008-12-cisco-suit. Retrieved 2009-01-04. 
  29. ^ Free Software Foundation (May 20, 2009). "FSF Settles Suit Against Cisco". Press release. http://www.fsf.org/news/2009-05-cisco-settlement.html. Retrieved 2009-05-20. 

Further reading

  • Bunnell, D. & Brate, A. (2001). Die Cisco Story (in German). Moderne Industrie. ISBN 3478359953.
  • Bunnell, D. (2000). Making the Cisco Connection: The Story Behind the Real Internet Superpower. Wiley. ISBN 0471357111.
  • Paulson, E. (2001). Inside Cisco: The Real Story of Sustained M&A Growth. Wiley. ISBN 0471414255.
  • Slater, R. (2003). The Eye of the Storm: How John Chambers Steered Cisco Through the Technology Collapse. HarperCollins. ISBN 0060188871.
  • Stauffer, D. (2001). Nothing but Net Business the Cisco Way. Wiley. ISBN 1841120871.
  • Waters, J. K. (2002). John Chambers and the Cisco Way: Navigating Through Volatility. Wiley. ISBN 0471008338.
  • Young, J. S. (2001). Cisco Unauthorized: Inside the High-Stakes Race to Own the Future. Prima Lifestyles. ISBN 0761527753.

External links

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