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

To: Steve Lee who wrote (21106)	1/23/1999 10:45:00 PM
From: KYA27	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 77397

I know for fact that a number of ASND's talent engineers are Not leaving.Lets not make believe you know more then you really do, Mr Lee.....Alias CSCO shareholder..... wishful thinking . My BIG TOE knows more then you pretend to know.

To: Steve Lee who wrote (21106)	1/24/1999 4:49:00 PM
From: Zoltan!	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 77397

Cisco targets the old and the tired: January 20, 1999 Coming Soon: A Device to Route Communications on Single System By SETH SCHIESEL In a challenge to makers of traditional communications gear, Cisco Systems Inc., the No. 1 maker of Internet equipment, says it is close to introducing a device that will allow communications carriers to route voice, video and data traffic on a single system, and at a fraction of current costs. The device, which Cisco calls a virtual switch controller, is based on Internet technology and is meant to augment or replace existing communications switches made by companies including Northern Telecom Ltd. of Canada and Ericsson AB of Sweden. But it is Lucent Technologies Inc., invigorated by its recent $20 billion deal to acquire Ascend Communications Inc., that Cisco has identified as its main competition. And it is Lucent, North America's No. 1 maker of traditional switching gear, that is the main target of Cisco's new product; Cisco said Tuesday that the virtual switch controller would give it inroads into an $8 billion chunk of Lucent's business. Much of the business of companies like Lucent and Northern Telecom is based on equipment that uses circuit-switch technology, which gives each voice conversation its own communications lane. Some communications experts believe that circuit-switch technology will eventually be replaced by systems that can perform more efficiently by breaking down communications into small pieces. Those pieces, known as packets, can then share a common communications pipeline, only to be reassembled into intelligible messages at their destination. By agreeing to buy Ascend, Cisco's closest competitor in the data communications market, Lucent took a big step to beef up its Internet-based offerings. "The real significance is that circuit-switching is a very limited technology and a proprietary technology," Donald J. Listwin, a Cisco executive vice president who manages the company's relationship with big communications carriers, said Tuesday in an interview. "This allows us to move voice over onto high-speed data infrastructures and it's opening it up to offer competition and innovation." When phone companies that use switches from companies like Lucent or Northern Telecom want to add new services, such as call forwarding or Caller ID, they must often purchase that software from the company that made the switch. Cisco says its new product, which it intends to formally announce by the end of the quarter, will incorporate open standards that allow carriers to buy new software from a variety of vendors. All that, Cisco says, will come at a price as little as 10 percent of that charged by its older competitors. Still, Cisco will have to overcome the traditional providers' deep pockets, deep reputation for reliability and deep relationships with big communications carriers. "From the standpoint of service providers, overall the thing that's really driving them is quality of service," said Daniel C. Stanzione, the president of Lucent's Bell Laboratories unit, speaking generally about Lucent's strategic outlook. "They want to be able to offer reliability beyond what you currently see in Internet switching." Stanzione added that with Ascend under its belt, Lucent intended to keep up with new technical standards and to set new ones. "We have our own very very strong developments in new switching technologies," he said. But some communications behemoths have already thrown in with Cisco. Marty Kaplan, the chief technology officer at the Sprint Corp., the No. 3 long-distance carrier, said Tuesday that Sprint intended to deploy Cisco's virtual switch controller as soon as this summer. "It is a very efficient play that allows carriers to converge all of their services on a single platform," Kaplan said, using communications jargon for a integrated suite of technologies. "It would allow voice traffic over a data structure at a high degree of reliability and at a lower cost." nytimes.com