Cisco axes hundreds, shares tumble amid China cut-off – but we're winning the trade war, right? So much winning Cisco has laid off 500 programmers in its home state of California amid disappointing financial results and a sagging share price. The cuts were disclosed in paperwork filed this month to the US state's Employment Development Department – a legal requirement for companies over a certain size getting rid of employees – and show …
And how the USA started with all the IP from the UK?
More currently, how did anyone think protecting Cisco from Huawei in the US would end? After having their interests protected via 5i's security scare-mongering I have zero sympathy.
I've noticed that the code these big tech companies use receives very little development considering the massive profits. I don't think they deserve the legal protection they receive on their IP.
>Which means China has the blueprints and ta very much.
In another article on this site talks about SD-LANs -- software defined lans -- it mentions "using cloud-hosted software functions and "white box" routers (or virtual/universal CPE) rather than proprietary hardware". Now, where do you think this "white box" routers are coming from? Cisco? Companies like Hawiei have built their business by providing equipment for markets deemed 'not profitable enough' for the then major players. Its the sort of move that's good for short term profits but opens the door for competitors....
This constant whining about 'stealing the blueprints' only comes from people who don't know the business. Anyone who does work in this field will have seen this coming a decade or more ago but we're only engineers, mere foot soldiers that are of not account so what do we know?
Just look at the UK motorcycle business - its the same. Let the Japanese look at the small monkey bikes and scooters as it was not profitable all those moons ago and look atwhat happened when the punters switched on and realised the Japanese bikes were better, more reliable and cheaper.
The Japanese were accused of copying, but the Japanese bikes were not copies of British ones. They were designed by people who followed the engineering textbooks, not Edward Turner's latest off the wall brainwave, and made by people who read Deming and adopted quality methods.
In fact, after Sony invented the Walkman it was the West who were playing catch-up on consumer electronics for many years.
This constant whining about 'stealing the blueprints' only comes from people who don't know the business. Anyone who does work in this field will have seen this coming a decade or more ago but we're only engineers, mere foot soldiers that are of not account so what do we know?
Not that long ago, the most powerful Cisco router was a Cisco Catalyst. Which was good news/bad news if you were building Ethernet-based networks. High port density, low port cost. Slight snag.. Cisco were well aware of this, so would never allow SP IOS versions on a Cat*.
And then as time passed, and Cisco borg'd, it offered an ever expanding range of IOS versions, feature licenses, service and maintenance contracts etc to the point where you could test the mettle of a true CCIE by simply asking them what to do when a licence failed to authenticate, or you needed to RMA something.. Or just throw in curveballs, like you want to buy Cisco kit in a bankruptcy auction, how would you get that kit into your Cisco support contract?
Meanwhile, Cisco's competitors looked at how complex the Borg had become, and figured making stuff that did it's job simply and cheaply was what carrier customers really wanted. Ok, that meant not offering some services, like Cisco branded boxer shorts.. But I did get some nice moon cakes from Huaweii.
*For a while, you could fool a Cat into being a router, but that required knowing some IOS chicanery that oddly enough, wasn't part of the CCIE syllabus. Feature enhancements and new tin closed that loophole.
Trump once said that if elected, "we'll have so much winning, you'll get bored with winning." Remember that?
And you know what, he was right, america is getting bored with winning and is finally ready for the next challenge: losing!
Losing is the new winning in trump america and that is a huge win-win because you win even when you lose. From now on trump america will keep winning by losing, Trump scores again!
This reminds me of an old joke.
The US invades China during the Cultural Revolution.
There is a battle. A messenger comes to Chairman Mao.
"Did we win?"
"Alas, a thousand Chinese were killed and only ten Americans."
There is another battle.
"Did we win?"
"Alas, a thousand heroic People's Soldiers were killed and only ten running dog Imperialists."
There is a third battle...and a fourth, and more, all with the same result.
Eventually an aide dares to ask the Chairman if the war is going to plan.
"Of course," says Mao, "Soon they will run out of Americans."
I really believe that the Chinese strategy is indeed to let the Americans "win" until they have lost.
And how much more would Cisco be winning if Huawei was allowed to compete, not just in the US, but elsewhere after US pressure?
Free trade goes both ways. Despite the the woe-is-me whining, I think Cisco finds the current situation quite to their advantage and immensely preferable to a free market.
First mover advantage in things like sdwan after they bought viptella will help stave off commoditization, but not for too long. It's mostly fancy vpns and the driver is usually to ditch those expensive mpls links and just use the internet. Lots of cool but mostly unnecessary features will not save you, as I'm sure the MS Office team can testify.
First mover advantage in things like sdwan after they bought viptella will help stave off commoditization, but not for too long. It's mostly fancy vpns and the driver is usually to ditch those expensive mpls links and just use the internet.
That's not really how SDWAN works.. or should work. Which is why Viptella may have been a waste of money. The modern Internet is really just a VPN and usually sits inside a VRF, plumbed together with MPLS LSPs.. Which is kinda back to the ancient OSI model, ie SDWAN works 'best' as a shim layer between L2 & L3 networks, but Cisco's never really had that much luck in the L2 (especially ONI) space. So it's limited in what it can do to mostly edge-edge overlays, not edge-core.
Cisco did - and as far as I know, still does - employ some extremely capable software developers but that was not universally reflected in its product shipments.
Part of the issue seemed to be that there wasn't really any obvious central control - a lot of groups going off doing essentially the same thing in slightly different ways and, of course, a lot of acquisitions bringing in entirely different product lines. It's a common problem with large listed companies - they pursue growth now regardless of the costs that come back to bite you later.
In principle, you could make a virtue of having fewer software engineers (and even if they get rid of a further 500 on top of those that have already gone that still leaves a lot) if you take the opportunity to manage them better. However, you have to have some idea of what "better management" is ...
Cisco? Can't find its [backend] with a map, two hands, ropes and local guides.
Only business I ever found who could not put on the table all the contract terms it was trying to insist on. The process went on and on, in and out of nested links and open and closed access pages and never ended.
No wonder they have troubles.
Bump a few hundred employees out the door, but then say there isn't a problem - Look at the number of job vacancies we have open. Just don't admit that none of those ex-employees would ever be considered for the new jobs.
I wonder if Cisco's "realign some of our teams" means the same thing as IBM "resource action" strategy - sack the old, expensive folk, and bring in fresh, cheap graduates, or just offshore the whole lot of them.
You seem to assume Cisco is on Trump's side (or at very least not on the opposite side so can be considered ally by default). Otherwise this headline doesn't make sense. But is there evidence for this?
What is observable: Cisco is on the same team as Facehug and Google. They used to support Clintons and Woke Housing, wrestling with ManBearPig, and all that rot. For example — how «Thought Leadership / Clinton Global Initiative» does sound like?
https://web.archive.org/web/1/www.cisco.com/c/en/us/about/consulting-thought-leadership/what-we-do/industry-practices/public-sector/our-practice/urban-innovation/connected-urban-development/further-cud-information/thought-leadership/clinton-global-initiative.html
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