Shroder,
I appreciate a researched perspective, however some of you data is either old or slightly incorrect.
Cisco is in a market where standard
protocol makes 90% of Cisco's gears replaceable today.
Fundamentally this is a true statement, however the same can be said for Intc and Msft. You can place any OS on a PC - there's no fundamental "hooks" msft has that elminates this possibility - the DOJ would drool if that were the case. Intc, same. Cisco indeed does adhere to standars (funny that you brought up StrataCom's non-standard implementation, but I'll get to that in a moment). However Cisco's products go beyond standards and offer incremental functionality not available in many other platforms. Furthermore Cisco is way ahead of the convergence game, is pratically owning the churn in cable infrastrcutures, has taken the lead in DSL deployment, and continues to sign new business and new carriers throughout the year.
48c, 45c the last two
quarters
You've got this backwards... They did .45 in Q3, and .48 in Q4...and .34 in Q2. Earning are accelerating. Not decelerating. They are lower than FY 97, however this is waaaaaaay dialed in and Cisco, over the past three quarters has accelerated their growth, grown market share, and established themselves in new markets.
StrataCom acquisition is not a
smooth transition and its product by default running proprietary protocol that does
not work with anybody else.
I'm not sure why you say the StrataCOm acq. was not smooth, perhaps you can provide more detail. As for StrataCom's "proprietary" protocol I could dive into that one all day long, however StratCom's Products are fully standard. You're living in the past on this one. Perhaps you should visit the Cisco web page. As for how well they're doing. ATM switching is certianly a smaller percentage of Cisco's business than it is for ASND (you honorable mentions are just that), but if you look at revenue generation I think you'll find that Cisco's ATM switches pull in as much reveneue as all of ASND. I have no doubt that LU will do well in this space to, but to mention CS, Extreme, and 3COM in the same breath as LU, ASND, and CSCO is ... well....a joke.
I know at least 10
Forture 500 companies switched from Cisco Cat 5500 to one of the above
company in the last 3 months.
Really? You sound very plugged in. Care to share who they are? did they switch (rip out the 5500 and replace them) or add a new switch that wasn't Cisco? I seriously doubt this statement. Provide some facts.
I won't comment on your last paragraph.
OG (biting his lip) |
