Oh! What a lovely pandemic, says Cisco as it sees wave of network refreshes on the horizon

Cisco has revealed that the first quarter of its new financial year saw a 13 percent fall in product revenue and “weakness” among commercial and enterprise buyers. And while execs have forecast a rebound, guidance offered to shareholders was for revenue to be flat or shrink a little in Q2. Revenue for Q1 2021 came in at $11.9 …

[Anonymous Coward]

Far too optimistic

Where I am now, Cisco was ripped out because of the cost... and with money becoming tighter, I can't see that reversing. If I was Cisco, I'd be bringing more to the table than just their brand.

[Nick Ryan]

Re: Far too optimistic

Yep. We had the choice of continuing with installing a fresh network with Cisco kit or not. Given how awful Cisco are becoming, in various ways, it was a pretty easy choice to go for non-Cisco kit.

[johnnyblaze]

Yipee

Who said the subscription business model doesn't pay. Subscriptions benefit no-one but the company selling them - it's continuous revenue all the way. Why sell a product to a customer once, when you can sell it to them again and again, and if they miss one payment they lose the service. This is an accountants wet dream.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Yipee

I am sorry but I have to strongly disagree. Used to work for Cisco until a year ago and saw the dynamic from the other side.

It was THE CUSTOMERS who demanded it. Because of cloud and everything as a Service every single conversation turned into a whine fest "why do we have to spend so much why can't we pay monthly per demand like in AWS waah waah waah". No matter how many times we showed them it's cheaper to go with CAPEX it was like talking to brainwashed members of a cult.

The business even offered transferable entitlements (=license). Basically, you buy the feature not tied to the hardware and when you buy a new router or switch you don't have to buy the license again but use the universal one. The only recurring cost is hardware and software support.

But noooooooo, it had to be OPEX. I don't know how many times I explained to some bonehead "you guys historically keep your gear 6 to 7 years. If you buy the license the cost is spread over those 6 to 7 years but in the subscription it's spread over 3. Why do you want to pay double?" (Mind you, I made more money in the subscription. Not just because of the higher revenue but also because we would get a 1.5-3x multiplier depending on product).

Nope, it was like talking to a chair.

Ya know, at some point you give up and give the customer what they are asking for and that seems to be a fucking subscription model no matter how stupid it is. And this is where we are now.

[Anonymous Coward]

also the last thing you want to be doing during this shit show is refreshing critical bits of kit, what could possibly go wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

This is exactly the time when you do it. You completely redesign and deploy campus and wireless when you do not have to rush it it in 24h sprints every weekend, never tackling more than can be done in one sprint, thus inevitably leading to a patchwork and not fundamentally modernized architecture.

[amanfromMars 1]

Re That Cisco business/financials presentation

Hello deckchairs ..... meet Titanic.

[Anonymous Coward]

My firm is in the process of re-replacing nearly 300 Meraki MS-225 switches worldwide under RMA, due to faulty fans. They said, with a straight face,that Once they triggered the RMA we had 45 days to swap and return all of the switches...........

[Anonymous Coward]

And?

It's Meraki, what's the problem you seem to have?

Unplug old switch, plug in new switch, sip hot beverage while configuration is pushed automatically from cloud, bill one hour work for 5 minutes work.