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Technology Stocks : Cisco -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DownSouth who wrote (179)	8/26/2000 3:06:56 AM
From: ms.smartest.person	Respond to of 405

Cisco Watch: Listwin wanted to be the boss During a recent interview with Redherring.com, former Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO) executive Don Listwin, who's now the new boss over at the new entity formed by the Phone.com (Nasdaq: PHCM)/Software.com (Nasdaq: SWCM) merger, said that even Cisco wasn't a fast-paced enough place for him. "On the Cisco side, I wasn't learning as much as I wanted to at the time, " Mr. Listwin said. Mr. Listwin commented that his next career goal was to be a CEO. "That would have taken a substantial amount of time at Cisco," he said. "This [his Phone.com/Software.com job] was a great opportunity," he said, noting the positive side of joining a firm without as much of an established history as Cisco. "This is a company that is just riding what I think is the next wave -- the convergence of the Internet and the wireless revolution." Mr. Listwin was also asked about whether he knew what his ex-colleague Mario Mazzola would be doing at Cisco now that Mr. Mazzola isn't retiring. "Mario is a brilliant engineering leader, and Cisco shareholders should be thrilled that he's sticking around to work on new technologies." What technologies, pray tell? Mr. Listwin decided to change the subject. TAKE IT BACK Press releases announcing that two companies are working together are generally suspect -- they're usually nothing more than public posturing. But there is a lesson here for firms who insist that public back-patting is worth the trouble: be careful of your word choice. Reliacast recently had a word fumble as it attempted to sneak out news that the company was working with Cisco to make products that work with Cisco's IOS software -- the software that runs most of the routers on the Net. Reliacast's technology lets service providers manage, measure, and report on audiences for streaming media events. Looking to stir up coverage about its new friendship with Cisco, Reliacast distributed a press release via its public relations firm to select members of the media. The problem, however, was that the news release hadn't yet passed muster with Cisco's legal department, which nixed the release. Shortly after it had sent the release out, Reliacast's PR firm and Reliacast executives embarrassingly called everyone they'd contacted and then refused to comment on anything related to its business with Cisco. When Cisco executives were called for comment, they routed calls through Cisco PR, who in turn said there was nothing they could (officially) say about the matter. At issue during the whole mess was the word, "partnership." Reliacast thought it had formed a "partnership" with Cisco, but after what we're sure were some enthusiastic discussions with lawyers, Reliacast found out it was less-formally "collaborating" with Cisco. As far as either company will say, no money has yet changed hands, and the deal isn't exclusive to either side. Translation: lawyer-approved public posturing is rarely newsworthy, unless there's a better story in the politics behind the "news." Like this one. SELLING STOCK A recent regulatory filing shows that Cisco CFO Larry Carter plans to sell 500,000 shares -- about $31.7 million worth of his stock. The filing, first reported by Reuters, didn't say whether the stock had already been sold. We tried to reach Mr. Carter for comment, hoping he'd give us some quirky, Steve Ballmer-esque response about Cisco being overvalued or Lucent being a great deal now that its stock has sunk more than 37 percent since a year ago this week. No such luck. But we'll keep an eye out over the San Francisco Bay in case a newly purchased yacht flying a Cisco flag (or a Jolly Roger) comes cruising by. NO GAMBLING WITH LOTTO TECHNOLOGY The UK's National Lottery Commission recently rejected bids to run the country's lottery from both Virgin boss Richard Branson and Camelot, the firm currently running the lotto. Mr. Branson was given time to adjust his bid, which he's doing right now. Camelot, according to reports in the Financial Times, was ruled out because of its partnership with U.S. lottery equipment supplier Gtech, a firm that's had technical problems resulting in thousands of mistakes in prize payouts. Mr. Branson's proposed "People's Lottery" plans to use technology from Cisco and Microsoft, among others. Even for games of chance, people tend to gravitate toward technology firms that evoke a sense of predictability. SUMMER BARGAINS? As of this writing, it's been nearly a month since Cisco's bought any other firms. Any thoughts as to who's going to be next? Drop us a line at ciscowatch@redherring.com. redherring.com

To: DownSouth who wrote (179)	11/10/2000 1:05:37 PM
From: The Phoenix	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 405

RHK suggesting that the capex slowdown is a mirage? New information available today from RHK suggests the fastest growth in optical equipment spending will be in the Asia/Pacific region [where CSCO has done a good job at market development], driven by accelerating bandwidth demand. RHK stated that China is adding about 1 million new Internet users each month - expected to generate $750 billion on infrastructure across the region to support projected demand. Remember - Sprint announced their plans to increase 2001 Capex spending by about 20% to the $6.2 billion range from the $5 billion range in '00. Subtract investment spending and internal spending will go up almost 50. Of course we now here that Salomon Smith Barney's view is that telecom Capex will generally rise not fall in '01. Add to that the fact that Sprint's new Capex guidance is well above their estimates of $3.85 billion for '00 and $3.90 billion for '01... and we start to get a new picture... from the VENDORS!!! Recent reports from analysts such as RHK, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Merrill Lynch and Robertson Stephens all indicate that industry's Capex for 2001 will not decelerate. Can't wait for this news to start coming out..... Bambs, Monty, Eski and the others are going to choke on this one... The award however goes to Robertson Stephens. These guys understand the issues in the market because while they aren't projecting the Capex growth rate they do state that due to overwhelming competition in the telecom industry the players have no choice but to invest in the networks of future which means not slowing down their Capex. MSDW goes on to predict that the Capex will shift away from capital assets such as truck leases, buildings, laying new fiber, and voice switching and towards optical infrastructure, routers, switches, etc.. meaning that companies delivering these products may acutally see a huge uptick in business next year!! There's much more data out there.... all one has to do is go look for it... sometimes you have to buy it... but bottom line... the analysts are speaking out of both sides of their mouths.... trying to get in cheap??? Looks that way to me. OG