CISCO: Bets 30% from New Technologies

For Cisco, the global switch and router giant, big and rapid growth will now
happen from the sale of new and advanced technologies that the company is now
dealing in. These include: security, storage, telephony, optical, and wireless.

According to John Chambers, president and CEO of Cisco, "Growth from the
advanced technology products will be over 30 percent in the future. Cisco's
routers and switches will grow at about 10 to 12 percent." Compared to
routers and switches, which contribute about 80 percent to Cisco's kitty,
sales from new and advanced technologies comes the remaining 20 percent.

John Chambers, CEO, Cisco Systems

Interestingly, while many of the other telecom equipment companies are also
looking at big revenues coming from services, Cisco will focus to be a products
company. "Our focus will be to ensure that our customers and partners are
able to offer lot many more services to their end customers," Chambers
added.

In an address to the media about Cisco's integrated network strategy,
Chambers predicted that it will evolve into integrated services and then
integrated applications.

Chambers also added that the company will be investing quite a bit in India
and China. According to Ned Hooper, VP, business development at Cisco, "at
the moment we are looking at several companies in India in the areas of wireless
and wireless applications, gaming, security, and component-level development for
acquisition. Most of these are 70—90 member teams with about $20—30 million
revenues."

Re-stating his company's faith in India as a high-growth market, Chambers
philosophically added that the future of IT companies, jobs, and countries that
do well in IT will depend on four factors: education systems, IT infrastructure,
capability to innovate in the market, and government's support.

Ibrahim Ahmad in San
Francisco