Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Gorilla and King Portfolio Candidates -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: EnricoPalazzo who wrote (41183)	3/29/2001 6:16:01 PM
From: Thomas Mercer-Hursh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

I'm not sure how they can leverage their Gorilla power into telecom (Moore called this Gorilla Adjacency Power on the email list a while back--I think it's a very important concept). This is similar to Thomas' skepticism of Microsoft's ability to leverage it's desktop OS Gorilladom into internet services, although I think CSCO may have an even harder time. While I wouldn't claim to any expertise on the networking issues (doesn't stop me from having an opinion, of course!), in Cisco's case it seems that much of the same technology applies in either sphere while in MSFT's case, the internet technology doesn't really have a lot to do with the desktop technology. Moreover, I would think that the telecom and enterprise networking solutions would often interconnect, giving Cisco a whole product opportunity. One could claim this for integrating .net into Windows, but it seems much more tangential.

To: EnricoPalazzo who wrote (41183)	3/29/2001 6:27:03 PM
From: Pirah Naman	Respond to of 54805

A very interesting read Ethan. But CSCO must replace $20B to stay even? That doesn't seem right, since their yearly sales are around $25B. I didn't think they were that strong in telecom yet? - Pirah

To: EnricoPalazzo who wrote (41183)	3/30/2001 7:08:46 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

Excellent Ravi Suria article, I've seen it posted on numerous threads, as it talks about things that are going to impact a lot of companies. 1. As information transfer increasingly takes place in digital format, it is the old telco equips (LU, NT, etc) that have the bigger problem in learning new technology, and making entirely new products. IMO, CSCO's niche (a big niche, but still much smaller than the telco equip market) in enterprise networking, gives them the better base from which to dominate the market, in the future. 2. You are right, that the telco service providers are going to consolidate into a handful of huge global companies, and they will deliberately spread orders around, to keep several viable choices among the equip companies. Sort of like the way Compaq makes repeated ineffectual efforts to keep AMD as a viable alternative to INTC, and Nokia is doing everything it can to dilute QCOM's IP in 3G (again, without much success). The thing is, telecom service, by its very nature, is a commodity. And there are still a lot of "national champions" who will be protected by their governments. So, I think CSCO is going to end up as a Gorilla, or a strong King, in an industry far bigger than enterprise networking.