More annoying, blatantly untrue propaganda by Cisco against LU/ASND -- Listwin is one shameless sophist
[Congrats to all ASND longs who were able to see through the Cisco lies over the last couple years and reap tremendous investment profits. djane]
IBD. Cisco Looking For 'Openness' To Support Life
Date: 6/24/99
Author: Michele Hostetler
Cisco Systems Inc. wants to build an ecosystem that supports many life
forms.
But instead of regular rainfall and a good food supply, the networking gear
leader's ecosystem needs something else to flourish: open standards that
ensure competitors' products work together.
Open standards will help Cisco compete against Lucent Technologies Inc.
and Nortel Networks Corp. as the industry moves away from proprietary
voice gear, says Don Listwin, Cisco's executive vice president in charge of
Internet-related products. The move is to packet-based gear, which divides
voice or data traffic into standard packets for easy transmission.
Listwin recently spoke with Investor's Business Daily about Cisco's plans
for stocking its ecosystem.
IBD:
How is Cisco's Internet strategy changing this year?
Listwin:
We think that the fundamental change for the expansion of the strategy is to
build our ecosystem and to make it much stronger for these new world
networks. At SuperComm '99 (a recent communications gear trade show),
we announced a new joint venture with Motorola Inc. on wireless
technology and our building standards out of that where other people can
participate. It's how we're expanding our reach into the market ecosystem.
We also announced new Internet networking management products for the
telecommunications industry built around an open-standards platform from
Cisco, KPMG Peat Marwick and Hewlett-Packard. Then we announced
another 100 partners that are building around the voice-over-Internet
Protocol ecosystem to do full solutions for that. If we eat our own dog food
in terms of this Internet model, externally we have to get more and more
people participating in our overall value proposition. I would say that's the
key focus for us.
IBD:
How are you achieving that?
Listwin:
By creating structures that at a technology level have open interfaces and
are built on open standards people can add value to. Let's say that a cable
company wants to do voice technology over cable now. We build that in an
open-standards way. So now (another company) can finish it. The notion
of building technologies around open standards is one of the big ideas of
how we get more people participating in solving customers' problems.
IBD:
When do you think sales for telecom gear based on traditional circuit
technology will slow?
Listwin:
At an industry level, they have flattened out. We have AT&T saying,
''We're not buying any more class-four switches (heavy-duty telecom gear
to route phone calls).''
We've seen industries like the cable industry saying, ''We're not buying
Sonet (an older optical technology).'' I think the gap between the winners
and losers is widening.
For the European players, in particular, the trough is faster than we
expected. For North American players that are expanding, the trough is
(coming) slower than we expected.
IBD:
Who will win or lose?
Listwin:
The market view is as follows: Alcatel, Siemens and NEC are losers.
Nokia and Ericsson are to be determined because of their strength in
wireless. I would say that Nokia, Ericsson and Nortel are to be
determined. Cisco and Lucent probably are going to be winners.
IBD:
Lucent is finalizing its $20 billion buy of Ascend Communications Inc. on
June 28. How do you think the combined company will affect Cisco?
Listwin:
We always are wary. Ascend has good technology. Lucent's a major
player. My personal observation (walking into) the Ascend booth at
SuperComm (was that) I couldn't find anyone I knew, and I know a lot of
people from Ascend. The observation of what's critical is not the here and
now of the technology, but what's next and who's going to do it.
All of the indicators I look at, having done 34 acquisitions myself, are what
we would expect of a large, bi-coastal, bad-cultural- fit acquisition. Am I
concerned about it? Absolutely. That's what I get paid for. Do I think
they're on the track that we expect? Yes, I do. You've got to stay up nights
about it, but this industry is not about what you've got now. It's about what
you've got next. I didn't see the intellectual leadership in the Ascend booth
that used to be there. [Hah. Cisco (that hollowed out technical shell) is talking about intellectual leadership....]
(C) Copyright 1999 Investors Business Daily, Inc.
Metadata: CSCO LU NT MOT HWP T ALA ASND E/IBD E/SN1 E/TECH |
