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

To: Mr.Fun who wrote (20787)	1/14/1999 7:13:00 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 77397

I am just looking for a much better entry point. Magnificent post, Fun! You have validated, IMO, what I read in Moore's, "The Gorilla Game" last year. Even though everyone is making as much, or more, money investing in Nortel and LU right now, I have put my eggs in the Cisco basket. I think, as you, that they will all do well. But Cisco is the "rule-maker" in this business, and is leaner and meaner. I look forward to updates from you on Cisco. The "entry point" business could be a sticker. I am sure that there will be a drop, sometime this year, but how much, and when? And will the "bottom" of that drop be better than what you would pay now? The present price is about an 87PE, depending on who you quote, which is at the historical "high end" for Cisco. However, we are seeing "inflation" in the major tech's PE's, and this could be changing from at "50 to 80" range to a "80 to 100" range. We have just seen Intel's average PE inflate. I am no expert on this! If I were, I would be playing the options market. My point is,are you going to be able to buy at any significant lower figure than now? Regards, and thanks again for a great post. LindyBill

To: Mr.Fun who wrote (20787)	1/14/1999 7:37:00 PM
From: Frank Sheridan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 77397

Mr Fun - you have a lot of really good questions / concerns. All I can offer in response is what I have observed in the past about CSCO, Sun, and MSFT. I remember back in the 80's thinking MSFT couldn't keep the lead they had established (%60 of the OS market) because their technology was just so deficient. Today they control %90+. I remember back in the early 90's thinking Sun was going to be in deep trouble by now because of powerful PC's and Windows NT. You can see how SUN is doing today. My point? That a really first rate management team, like the one at CSCO (or MSFT, or Sun) is able to see better than you or I where to go and what to do to grow as a company. I really wish I had bought MSFT back in the late 80's when the engineers I knew said MSFT couldn't survive because their product was so crappy. I wish I had bought Sun back when I thought PC's were going to wipe them out. I'm really glad I hold CSCO now. Just my thoughts. Regards. P.S. Mr. Fun - your input is thoughtful and appreciated.

To: Mr.Fun who wrote (20787)	1/14/1999 7:51:00 PM
From: DownSouth	Respond to of 77397

Mr. Fun, Thank you so much for your insightful post. Stick around. We need you here.

To: Mr.Fun who wrote (20787)	1/14/1999 9:33:00 PM
From: dreydoc	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 77397

Mr. Fun: Great post and thanks for the nicely balanced view. Any thoughts on the strength CSCO shows in the global arena? In your post concerning carrier contracts, there was no mention of global business. Perhaps because contracts aren't firm yet, but I for one am very encouraged by CSCO's aggressive and early entry into the marketplace(s) of the future. Hard I suppose for us western'rs to remember at times, but the Internet Generation is multi-lingual. There's probably a very good reason that those Cisco ad's are a bit perplexing to some of us; I'll bet the majority of Cisco's future market ain't us ;-) I think they are making great strides in Asia and South Am. although I have no relative numbers to support that hunch. Perhaps you do. 10 Universities recently adopted Cisco Academy Programs in China. Many parts of the world want to participate in the great wave and will leapfrog technology cycles. Cisco's strong relationship efforts should see fruit in '99, certainly in the years to come. Thanks. dd

To: Mr.Fun who wrote (20787)	1/14/1999 11:12:00 PM
From: Eric	Respond to of 77397

Mr. Fun Welcome to the Cisco thread. Yes I learned about entering Cisco long about 1600% ago when I used to trade it. It will be fun watching this sector grow in the future. The jury is still out on LU. It just has not been around long enough for us to see how it can grow. (Independent from AT&T) Eric

To: Mr.Fun who wrote (20787)	1/14/1999 11:45:00 PM
From: OwnDrummr	Respond to of 77397

Mr.Fun, Thanks for your thoughtful and lucid post. I'm a long time lurker, and 7-year CSCO holder, so I save pertinent clippings. Here's a quote from a fairly negative Forbes article: "Will Cisco, which owes its immense market cap to routers, ever have its heart in switches? 'No problem,'says Chambers. 'We are willing to eat our young before somebody else does.'" The article is from July 29, 1996. OD

To: Mr.Fun who wrote (20787)	1/15/1999 12:41:00 AM
From: Uncle Frank	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 77397

Welcom to the thread, Mr. Fun. I've enjoyed your posts. >>Can Cisco duplicate its awesome market share gains in 1999? >>Can Cisco sustain its 65% + Gross margins on this equipment? I believe they can and will do both, based on my understanding of Gorilla behavior. Moore's observation that Gorillas will continuously outperform market expectations has held true during my experience with csco, msft, and intc. Imho, lu will be less effective in Cisco's part of the jungle than they have in their own. You are very proficient in the networking sector. Have you participated in csco's amazing returns during this decade? Why are you considering adding csco just at the time they are encountering what you seem to feel is a major challenge by lu/asnd? Out of the penalty box, Frank

To: Mr.Fun who wrote (20787)	1/15/1999 12:53:00 AM
From: joe	Respond to of 77397

I've read much of your posts and you name just about every networker around except one major one - COMS. IMO, COMS is a major force in points 2-5. I still hold CSCO shares, but have a heavier weighting on COMS. Any thoughts on how COMS fits into your analysis?

To: Mr.Fun who wrote (20787)	1/15/1999 1:36:00 AM
From: VegasMan	Respond to of 77397

Excellent Post. One of the most well spoken and intelligent posts I have read. VM

To: Mr.Fun who wrote (20787)	1/15/1999 2:16:00 AM
From: jach	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 77397

<onslaught of new competition in a category that has been blissfully uncompetitive for years? I think alot ~75-80% but that prices will have to come down alot - I think Cisco makes 80% gross margins here. Looking back at my post, I think it sounds too negative. Lets be clear, I am only concerned about Cisco's ability to please an investor base that is expecting 35-40% top line growth based on consensus earnings estimates. It did 31.3% last year. In the long run, I think Cisco will emerge as a big winner. As will Lucent. Even Nortel. It is not a zero sum game amongst these three. I am just looking for a much better entry point.> good points, a good entry point is between 70 and 75$. ============> here is a sample of a startup in GB router There are another ten or more companies (startups and others) ready with their great products to compete with csco. One thing for sure, too much competition drives prices and MARGIN down. Argon Networks scales router smarts By Jim Duffy Network World, 01/11/99 Littleton, Mass. Gigabit router start-up Argon Networks is taking the Internet scalability issue beyond bandwidth to the brain of the backbone. Argon last week touted the route processing capability of its yet-to-be-released GigaPacket Node (GPN) router, which the firm claims has the optimal horsepower for handling Internet peering and virtual private network deployment. For end users, scalable processing may mean more reliable Internet service, Argon claims. The control shelf component of Argon's GPN performs all route calculations and processing for Border Gateway Protocol 4 (BGP4), Open Shortest Path First and Multi-protocol Label Switching (MPLS) circuit assignments. Argon says the GPN control shelf architecture allows users to scale processing to manage thousands of BGP4 sessions and up to eight million MPLS label assignments. Conversely, Cisco Internet routers and those from other start-ups may not have enough horsepower to support future BGP4 peering requirements or reliable enterprise-to-Internet connectivity, Argon claims. For now, Argon's control shelf architecture is unique, analysts say. But GPN won't be generally available until mid-1999, so Cisco and other start-ups may have time to respond. "They may not have to rearchitect everything, but they're going to have to crank up processors or put in a second processor," says Bob Bellman, principal at Brooktrail Research in Natick, Mass. ================= comment on this Thousands of BGP4 and eight millions MPLS labels, that's a tall tall order to match. No way in six months time frame, just to test on all platforms take that long. And, boosting performance is not as simple as adding another processor, the architecture may not support it. imo.