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Technology Stocks : Cisco Systems, Inc. (CSCO) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wyätt Gwyön who wrote (61827)	10/11/2002 5:22:04 PM
From: chaz	Respond to of 77400

Here's what's on my mind these days, but I'll start with a preface so whoever is prompted to respond will have an idea of why I'm asking the question. First I'm retired, and have been outside the industry by at least 15 years. Second, I have no technology training, and struggle with techy posts. Third, my view of the computer industry as a whole is pretty much confined to my desktop PC, which means I have no real concept of how a company determines it's computing needs or how it evaluates the alternatives available to meet those needs. I do have a fair handle on the various ways one vendor can emerge as a category leader, subscribe to G&K notions, and to the "total solution" premise as the key to market leadership. There are two market areas about which I am hopeful. They are Memory, and Networking. Presently, my ability to sort out what's going on in these areas is strained. I'm not currently invested in either area, because I don't understand the trends within them. Press releases aren't much help, and there's an industry analyst for any viewpoint. Neither are much help to me. EMC was the big winner of the 90's, built largely around breaking up IBM's stranglehold on the mainframe customer's pocketbook. (Anybody remember how DEC did the same thing in the 80's?) NTAP came along with a slightly different solution for non mainframe customers. VRTS, BRCD and others I'm not aware of are also in there, but in the period just passed these others seemed as 2nd tier players, but in the period ahead one of them may lead, or get bought because they've got a key part of the "next" solution. Now, I get the sense that both of these customers will be looking for a different kind of solution to their memory needs, but I can't put my finger on why I feel that way, or what the solution will look like, or who will have it, or if it's here and I just don't have the smarts to recognize it. Anybody care to offer an agnostic overview of both customer needs and vendor capabilities to meet them for the decade ahead? chaz