Stockman,
Obviously all the points you made have not affected CSCOs earnings, market share gains, growth, gross margins, etc. When a company is a the top like CSCO, competitors look with magnifying glasses to find chinks in the armor. I don't deny your points, I just believe their importance is highly exaggerated. My .2 cents:
1-L3 switching: Yes CSCO is late to the game, but so what ? They haven't lost any significant router deals, because existing L3 switches don't have conventional router capabilites. If you need a router to do VLAN routing in IP only networks, then a L3 switch makes sense. Otherwise, CSCO wins...
2-CSCO has re-iterated their great relationship with MSFT at the CC. DEN is a MSFT/CSCO initiative, dependant on NT 5.0. We have yet to see the real benefits of this relationship. And NOVL is akin to BAY. The just don't matter anymore.
3- Granite deal was to deliver GE technology to CSCO. Again CSCO may be a little late, but obviously it's noy hurting them win new switching deals. FE- channel is a fine substitute for most customers.
4- LU and NT partnerships have not been announced, but I would venture that something this big takes time. (Certainly more than 3 months). This one's a real stretch on your part.
5- Alcatel screw-up ? I'm not sure what you mean. Did CSCO lose a significant piece of business because of this ? If not, who cares.
6- AT&T issue: I thought Chambers was awesome in taking blame for the outage and I'm sure AT&T appreciates that. It's not going to affect their business in the short term and any technical issues either have or will be resolved quickly.
BTW, CSCO closed at a new all time high, $ 76, giving it a market cap of over $ 77 Billion. That's a lot of L3 switch companies ...
Peppe |
