To: Stock Farmer who wrote (65482 ) 5/14/2004 12:07:03 PM From: Peter Joseph Respond to There has been several quarters in the past when Cisco closed the books early. No products were shipped during the last 1 or 2 weeks. May not have happened lately, but you can see how predictable this $0.01 'surprise' has become.In our opinion, outside pressures too often tempt companies to sacrifice long-term opportunities to meet quarterly market expectations. Sometimes this pressure has caused companies to manipulate financial results in order to "make their quarter." In Warren Buffett's words, "We won't 'smooth' quarterly or annual results: If earnings figures are lumpy when they reach headquarters, they will be lumpy when they reach you." we believe that artificially creating short-term target numbers serves our shareholders poorly. We would prefer not to be asked to make such predictions, and if asked we will respectfully decline. A management team distracted by a series of short-term targets is as pointless as a dieter stepping on a scale every half hour.
