Cisco loves to play Monopoly. So while the Justice Department a few years back was going after Microsoft, I regularly said on the KenRadio World Technology RoundUp that the company Janet Reno and her team should have been studying and investigating was Cisco.
The more I see, the more I read, and the more I hear, Cisco is a true monopoly player. Ask companies that ever competed head to head about the way they operate. How they do swarm sales tactics. How they use the sales channel mix to cultivate leads. Cisco, when it comes to sales has a “take no prisoners” approach. Honestly, I admire a company that knows how to win. Cisco uses their might, size and checkbook to compete and usually wins, not with the best of class technology all the time either. What they do best is out sell and market better, and thus gain market share. Gee, isn’t that what Microsoft does too?
Now, after working their way through the telecom slow down, Cisco has shown they used that period of limited spending by the carriers to think what the market will be wanting, when money starts flowing. Much of what Cisco is banking on has more to do with their MPLS (Muti-Protocol Label Switching) based technology and the future surrounding IPv6.
Cisco is starting to show their cards, and their colors. Watch for their efforts in acquisitions to take hold in 2004.
Stay Connected,
Andy Abramson