Not sure about date stamp on this good news.
Cisco's Russo Says Optical Orders `Picking Up' in Recent Weeks
By Scott Lanman
San Francisco, March 6 (Bloomberg) -- Cisco Systems Inc. Vice
President Carl Russo, who heads the company's optical-networking
business, said orders in his division have increased in recent weeks
as customers start spending their annual budgets.
``I see things picking up,'' Russo said during a question-and- answer
session at the Thomas Weisel Partners Emerging Networks
Conference in San Francisco. ``What I'm seeing now is we're moving
through those steps to close the contract,'' after customers were
delaying orders, he said.
Russo didn't mention specific agreements. Last month, Cisco said it
won an order to sell as much as $1 billion of gear to natural-gas
pipeline owner El Paso Corp., which is building a fiber-optic network.
In a brief interview following the presentation, Russo said ``there's
more coming.''
Cisco spokeswoman Robyn Jenkins said Russo referred to ``positive
momentum'' in sales of optical equipment to handle streams of data
traffic flowing over fiber-optic networks in cities. Russo came to Cisco
in November 1999 when it bought his company, Cerent Corp., for that
type of equipment.
Cisco shares rose 92 cents to $24 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
They've declined 37 percent this year.
Cisco, rivals Nortel Networks Corp. and Lucent Technologies Inc., and
their suppliers, such as chipmaker PMC-Sierra Inc., have all suffered
in recent months as phone companies have delayed or cancel orders
amid a U.S. economic slowdown.
``People are now sitting there saying, ``I got a budget, I know what I
need to do and we're going,''' Russo said.
Optical-networking equipment accounts for less than 10 percent of
Cisco's revenue, Russo said. He declined to give an exact figure. |
