Cisco Systems
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| Type | Public (NASDAQ: CSCO) |
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| Founded | San Francisco, California, USA (1984) |
| Headquarters |  San Jose, CA |
| Key people | John T. Chambers, Chairman and CEO |
| Industry | Computer networking |
| Market cap | $132 billion USD (2008)[1] |
| Revenue | ▲$39.540 billion USD (2008) |
| Operating income | ▲ $9.442 billion USD (2008) |
| Net income | ▲ $8.052 billion USD (2008) |
| Employees | 66,050 (2008) |
| Website | http://www.cisco.com |
Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO, SEHK: 4333) is a multinational corporation with more than 66,000 employees and annual revenue of US$39 billion as of 2008. Headquartered in San Jose, California, it designs and sells networking and communications technology and services under five brands, namely Cisco, Linksys, WebEx, IronPort, and Scientific Atlanta.
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[edit] Corporate history
Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married couple that worked in computer operations staff at Stanford University, later joined by Richard Troiano, founded cisco Systems in 1984. The name "Cisco" was derived from the city name, San Francisco, which is why the company insisted using the lower case 'cisco' in the early days. Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software originally written by William Yeager, another staff employee who had begun the work years before Bosack arrived from the University of Pennsylvania, where Bosack had received his bachelor's degree.
While Cisco was not the first company to develop and sell a router,[2] it was one of the first to sell commercially successful routers supporting multiple network protocols.[3] As the Internet Protocol (IP) has become a standard, the importance of multi-protocol routing as a function has declined. Today, Cisco's largest routers are marketed to route primarily IP packets and MPLS frames.
In 1990, the company went public and was listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Lerner was fired and because of that, Bosack quit but not before receiving $200 million. Most of those profits were given to charities and the two later divorced.
Cisco acquired a variety of companies to bring in talent and innovation into the company. Several acquisitions, e.g. Stratacom, were the biggest deals at the time when it happened. During the Internet boom in 1999, the company acquired Cerent Corp., a start-up company located in Petaluma, California, for about US$7 billion. It was the most expensive acquisition made by Cisco at that time. Since then, only Cisco's acquisition of Scientific-Atlanta has been bigger. Although not every acquisition is equally successful, Cisco has been on the successful side integrating its acquisitions compared to its competitors. Several acquired companies has grown into the backbone business units for Cisco in the LAN switching, VOIP, and home networking area.
In late March 2000, at the height of the dot-com boom, Cisco was the most valuable company in the world, with a market capitalization of more than US$500 billion.[4][5] In 2007, with a market cap of about US$180 billion, it is still one of the most valuable companies.[6]. CSCO was voted stock of the decade on NASDAQ. The company's 7500 Series router was voted 3rd in the product of the decade 1990-2000 behind the Mosaic web browser and the Novell LAN manager.
Cisco has made inroads into many network equipment markets outside routing, including Ethernet switching, remote access, branch office routers, ATM networking, security, IP telephony, and others. In 2003, Cisco acquired Linksys, a popular manufacturer of computer networking hardware and positioned it as a leading brand for the home and end user networking market (SOHO).
The company's first two CEOs are John Morgridge and John Chambers [1] (active).
The company was a 2002-03 recipient of the Ron Brown Award.
[edit] Corporate affairs
The company has its corporate headquarters in San Jose, California, with many buildings in the area near North First Street and Tasman. Cisco also has outposts in many other countries such as Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Belize, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, Monaco, Montenegro, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico and The Caribbean, Romania, Russia, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Venezuela, Vietnam.[7]
Cisco's vision is "Changing the Way We Work, Live, Play and Learn." Cisco's current tagline is "Welcome to the human network."[8]
[edit] Products and services
[edit] Partial list of hardware products
- Application Network Services
- Broadband Cable products: uBR7100 series, uBR7200 series, uBR10012 CMTSes. A line of Cable modems, the uBR900 series and CVA122 series, were also made in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but have since been discontinued.
- Clean Access Server
- Content Networking
- DSL & Long Reach Ethernet
- Interoperability Systems
- Cisco LocalDirector load-balancing appliance
- Optical Networking series: 15xxx Series: 15302, 15305, 15310, 15327, 15454, 15600, 1580x, 15900(wavelength router, but end for sale)
- Routers: AGS, AGS+, MGS, IGS, CGS, SB107, 700, 800, 837, 1000 Series, 1600 Series, 1700, 1800, 2500 Series, 2600 Series, 2800, 3600, 3700, 3800, 4000 Series, 4500, 7000 Series, 7100/7200/7300/7400 Mid Range Customer Edge/Service Provider Edge family, 7500, 7600, 10000, 12000, and CRS-1
- Security & VPN products: Anomaly Detection and Mitigation Appliances, Cisco AVS 3110 Application Velocity System, Cisco ASA 5500 Series Adaptive Security Appliances, Cisco PIX 500 Series Security Appliances, Cisco VPN 3000 Series Concentrators, Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series/7600 Series WebVPN Services Module, IPSec VPN Services Module (VPNSM) for Cisco Catalyst 6500 Switches and Cisco 7600 Series Routers
- Server Networking & Virtualization
- SPA Phone Adapters
- Storage networking
- Switches
- Catalyst series: 500 and 520 Express, 1900 Series, 2900, 2950, 2960, 3560 and 3560E, 3750 and 3750E, 4500, 6500 Nexus 7000 switch and 5000 switch (from the Nuova Systems Inc. acquisition] etc..
- Metro Ethernet ME 3400 Series Access Switches
- MGX 8800 Series Multiservice Switches: MGX 8830, MGX 8850
- MDS 9000 Series Multilayer SAN Switches
- Nexus 1000V distributed virtual software switch
- Universal Gateways & Access Servers
- Video
- Cisco Telepresence
- Voice & IP Communications: 7900 Series IP Phones: 7936, 7906G, 7912G, 7911G, 7920, 7921G, 7911G, 7921G, 7931G, 7940G, 7941G, 7941G-GE, 7960G, 7961G, 7961G-GE, 7970G, 7971G-GE, 7975G and 7985G
- Wireless: Wireless Integrated Switches and Routers,Wireless IP Telephony, Wireless LAN Access, Aironet Wireless Bridges and Workgroup Bridges, Cisco Wireless LAN Client Adapters (PCI and PCMCIA), Wireless LAN Controllers, Wireless Network Management, Wireless LAN Management, Wireless Security Servers, Wireless IP Phone 7920
[edit] Partial list of software products
- Internet Operating System (IOS)[2], IOS-XR
- Cisco Active Network Abstraction (ANA)
- Cisco Network Assistant (CNA)
- Cisco Configuration Assistant (CCA)
- Cisco CallManager / Unified Communications Manager (CUCM)
- Cisco Emergency Responder (CER)
- Cisco IP Transfer Point (ITP)
- Cisco Multimedia Conference Manager (MCM)
- Cisco Fabric Manager
- CiscoView
- CiscoWorks Network Management software
- IP SLAs
- Cisco Intelligent Contact Management
- Cisco Secure Access Control Server (ACS)
- Cisco Access Registrar (AR)
- Cisco Security MARS (Monitoring, Analysis and Response System)
- Cisco Clean Access Agent, Cisco Clean Access Manager, Cisco NAC Appliance
- Content Loadbalancers (acquired from Arrowpoint)
- Content Engine
- Wireless LAN Solution Engine
- Cisco VPN Client
- Packet Tracer, a didactic network simulator
- Cisco IP/TV
- Cisco IP/VC
- Cisco NX-OS
- Cisco Unified Contact Center
- Cisco MeetingPlace
- Cisco Unity
- Cisco Unified Communications Manager
- Cisco Unified Personal Communicator
- Cisco Unified Presence Server
- Cisco Unified Application Environment
- Cisco IP Communicator
- Cisco Unified Video Advantage
- Cisco Secure Desktop
- Cisco Security Manager
- WebEx Collaboration Tools
- Cisco Transport Manager
- Cisco Router and Security Device Manager
- Cisco Enhanced Device Interface
- Wireless Control System
- Wide Area Application Services (WAAS)
- BTS 10200 [PacketCable specifications based SoftSwitch with Class 4/5 and IMS functionalities]
- PGW 2200
- HSI
[edit] Cisco Systems VPN Client
The Cisco Systems VPN Client is an executable program that allows Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris and Windows based computers to connect to a Virtual Private Network (VPN). The client makes remote resources of another network available in a secure way as if the user was connected directly to that "private" network. The software is not free but is often installed on university and business computers in accordance with a site-license. Cisco has recently released a client called Cisco AnyConnect VPN. This new client supports 64 bit operating systems.
[edit] VoIP services
Cisco became a major provider of Voice over IP to enterprises, and is now moving into the home user market through its acquisitions of Scientific Atlanta and Linksys. Scientific Atlanta provides VoIP equipment to cable service providers such as Time Warner, Cablevision, Rogers Communications, UPC, and others; Linksys has partnered with companies such as Skype and Yahoo to integrate consumer VoIP services with wireless and cordless phones.
[edit] Criticisms and controversy
[edit] China
Cisco has been criticized for its involvement in censorship in the People's Republic of China.[9] According to author Ethan Gutmann, Cisco and other telecommunications equipment providers supplied the Chinese government with surveillance and Internet infrastructure equipment that is used to block Internet websites and track Chinese on-line activities. Cisco says that it does not customize or develop specialized or unique filtering capabilities to enable governments or regimes to block access to information and that it sells the same equipment in China as it sells worldwide.[10] Leaked documents suggests that Cisco sees information control in China as a good commercial opportunity.[11]
[edit] Shareholder class action lawsuit against Cisco
On August 18, 2006 Cisco reached a settlement in a long-standing class action lawsuit that originated in 2001. "The original suit, filed April 20, 2001, claimed that the company made misleading statements, or omitted statements of material fact, that were relied on by purchasers of Cisco stock. It also alleged that the individual defendants sold Cisco stock while in possession of material, non-public information. Cisco denied all allegations in the suit."[12] While Cisco denies all wrongdoing in the suit, it agreed to settle with the plaintiffs. Cisco's liability insurers, its directors, and officers paid the plaintiffs US$91.75 million to settle the suit.[13]
[edit] Cisco lawsuit against Huawei
On January 23, 2003, Cisco sued Huawei Technologies, Co., Ltd and its subsidiaries, Huawei America, Inc. and FutureWei Technologies, Inc. over Huawei's unlawful copying of Cisco's intellectual property.[14] The suit alleged that Huawei "unlawfully copied and misappropriated Cisco's IOS software... and infringed numerous Cisco patents." Cisco suspended the patent infringement lawsuit on October 1, 2003, after Huawei agreed to modify some of their products.
[edit] Brazil
On October 16, 2007, the Brazilian Federal Police and Brazilian Receita Federal (equivalent to the American IRS) under the "Persona Operation" uncovered an alleged tax fraud scheme employed since 2002 that exempted the company from paying over R$1.5 billion (US$824 million) in taxes.[15]
[edit] See also
- Catalyst switch
- Cisco Career Certifications
- Cisco IOS - the operating system used in Cisco routers
- CLEO Cisco router in Low Earth Orbit
- List of acquisitions by Cisco Systems
[edit] References
- ^ "Company Profile for Cisco Systems Inc (CSCO)". Retrieved on 2008-09-30.
- ^ I, Cringely . NerdTV . Transcript | PBS
- ^ Cisco claim of first multi-protocol router
- ^ "Cisco pushes past Microsoft in market value", CBS Marketwatch (2000-03-25). Retrieved on 2007-01-25.
- ^ "Cisco replaces Microsoft as world's most valuable company", Reuters, The Indian Express (2000-03-25). Retrieved on 2007-01-25.
- ^ Fost, Dan (2006-05-05). "Chron 200 Market capitalization", San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved on 2007-01-25.
- ^ "Cisco Systems Office Locations". Cisco Systems. Retrieved on 2008-04-17.
- ^ "The Human Network". Cisco Systems, Inc.. Retrieved on 2007-01-25.
- ^ FRONTLINE: the tank man: the struggle to control information | PBS
- ^ Earnhardt, John (2006-02-15). "Cisco Testimony Before House International Relations Subcommittee". Cisco Systems, Inc.. Retrieved on 2007-01-25.
- ^ "Leaked Cisco Internal Memo".
- ^ Cisco Systems, Inc. (2006-08-18). "Cisco Shareholder Class Action Lawsuit Resolved". Press release. Retrieved on 2007-01-25.
- ^ "Cisco resolves class action lawsuit", Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal (2006-08-18). Retrieved on 2007-01-25.
- ^ Cisco Systems, Inc. (2003-01-23). "Cisco Files Lawsuit Against Huawei Technologies". Press release. Retrieved on 2007-01-25.
- ^ International Herald Tribune (2007-10-17). "Brazilian tax authorities raid, close Cisco System's offices in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro". Press release. Retrieved on 2007-10-17.
[edit] External links
- Cisco Systems Home Page
- Cisco on Cisco: Inside Cisco IT Cisco IT case studies, best practices, presentations, video
- Cisco Networking Academy
- Cisco Press
- Cisco Blogs Home Page
- Information on Cisco Certifications
- Interactive Overview - 20 Years of Cisco
- Video and audio of speech by CEO John Chambers at Duke University
- USA Today Q&A with CEO John Chambers
- Cisco Tips
- Interview with former CEO, John Morgridge, by Stanford students of iinnovate
- Business data
- Cisco Systems at Google Finance
- Cisco Systems at Yahoo Finance
- Cisco Systems at Hoover's
- Cisco Systems at Reuters
- Cisco Systems SEC filings at EDGAR Online
- Cisco Systems SEC filings at the Securities and Exchange Commission
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