Saturday November 27, 9:05 am Eastern Time
Cisco open to Ericsson partnership-paper
STOCKHOLM, Nov 27 (Reuters) - Cisco Systems Inc (NasdaqNM:CSCO - news), the world's biggest maker
of computer networking equipment, said in remarks published on Saturday it believed the door was open to a
strategic partnership with Sweden's Ericsson .
Theo Wegbrans, Cisco's Northern Europe head, said comments from Ericsson chief executive Kurt Hellstrom
last week making clear that the Swedish telecoms equipment maker would focus on wireless technology made
Cisco a logical partner.
'That makes us the logical complement to Ericsson,' Wegbrans told Sweden's Dagens Industri daily in an
interview.
'We hope that Ericsson will become our strategic partner...Hellstrom's comments indicate a new opening for
cooperation,' he added.
Cisco executives were unavailable for comment but Ericsson information head Pia Gideon said it was not clear to
which remarks Wegbrans was referring.
'We are continuously looking around but are quite happy with the portfolio we have...we are sticking to our
strategy of acquiring complementary small or medium-sized partners,' she said.<\b> Last week Ericsson, which is the
world's biggest maker of mobile systems, said it was not interested in buying Canada's Newbridge Networks.
Wegbrans said that while Cisco admired Ericsson's wireless strength, it was not so impressed with its datacom
capacity and needed to shed excess weight to increase its stock market value.
'Ericsson is a crown jewel, with a lot of mud on it,' Dagens Industri quoted him as saying.
Last week, Cisco announced a strategic partnership with Swedish telecommunications company
Bredbandsbolaget (B2) to supply it with $200 million of networking equipment for its new high-speed Web
access service. The partnership will enable B2 and Cisco to deliver high speed Internet access services to more
than half a million households in Sweden.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
