Friday 3 February 2012
HP
Infosys limitted
Infosys
CISCO HISTORY
CISCO HISTORY
1984-1990: early years
Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married couple who worked as computer operations staff members at Stanford University, later joined by Nicholas Pham, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner moved on to direct computer services at Schlumberger, moving full time to Cisco in 1987. The name "Cisco" was derived from the city name, San Francisco, which is why the company's engineers insisted on using the lower case "cisco" in the early days. For Cisco's first product, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software originally written some years before by William Yeager, another Stanford employee who later joined Sun Microsystems. The company's first CEO was Bill Graves, who held the position from 1987 to 1988.[6] In 1988, John Morgridge was appointed CEO.
On February 16, 1990, the company went public (with a market capitalization of $224 million) and was listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. On August 28, 1990, Lerner was fired; upon hearing the news, her husband Bosack resigned in protest. The couple walked away from Cisco with $170 million, 70% of which was committed to their own charity.[7]
While Cisco was not the first company to develop and sell a router,[8] it was one of the first to sell commercially successful routers supporting multiple network protocols.[9] Classical, CPU-based architecture of early Cisco devices coupled with flexibility of operating system IOS allowed for keeping up with evolving technology needs by means of frequent software upgrades. Some models (such as Cisco 2500) managed to stay in production for 5–8 years virtually unchanged. Although Cisco products had their roots in the enterprise environment, the company was quick to capitalize in emerging service provider market as well, entering market with successful product lines such as Cisco 7500 and GSR.
Between 1992 and 1994, Cisco also acquired several companies in Ethernet switching, most notably Kalpana, Grand Junction and Crescendo Communications which together formed the Catalyst product line. At the time, the company envisioned layer 3 routing layer 2 (Ethernet, Token Ring) switching as complementary functions of different intelligence and architecture - the former was slow and complex, the latter was fast but simple.
In 1995, John Morgridge was succeeded by John Chambers
[edit] 1996-2005: Internet and silicon intelligence
The phenomenal growth of Internet in mid-to late 1990s quickly changed telecom landscape. As the Internet Protocol (IP) became widely adopted, the importance of multi-protocol routing declined. Nevertheless, Cisco managed to capitalize on the Internet wave, with a wide range of products that became vital to Internet service providers and by 1998 gave Cisco de-facto monopoly in this critical market segment.
In late March 2000, at the height of the dot-com boom, Cisco became the most valuable company in the world, with a market capitalization of more than US$500 billion.[10][11] In November 2011, with a market cap of about US$94 billion,[12] it is still one of the most valuable companies.[13]
Meanwhile, the growth of Internet bandwidth requirements kept challenging traditional, software-based packet processing architectures. The perceived complexity of programming routing functions in silicon led to formation of several startups determined to find new ways to process IP and MPLS packets entirely in hardware and blur boundaries between routing and switching. One of them, Juniper Networks, shipped their first product in 1999 and by 2000 chipped away about 30% from Cisco SP Market share. Cisco answered the challenge with homegrown ASICs and fast processing cards for GSR routers and Catalyst 6500 switches. In 2004, Cisco also started migration to new high-end hardware CRS-1 and software architecture IOS-XR.
[edit] 2006-current: The Human Network
As part of the massive rebranding campaign of 2006, Cisco Systems adopted the shortened name "Cisco" and created "The Human Network" advertising campaign. These efforts were meant to make Cisco a "household" brand - a strategy designed to support the low-end Linksys products and future consumer products (such as Flip Video camera acquired by Cisco in 2009).
As part of the company's overseas strategy, Cisco built substantial presence in India. It has established its Globalization Centre East in Bangalore for $1 billion planning that 20% of Cisco's leaders will be based there.[14] However, Cisco continued to be challenged by both domestic Alcatel-Lucent, Juniper Networks and overseas competitors Huawei.
Due to lower than expected profit in 2011, Cisco was forced to reduce annual expenses by $1 billion. The company cut around 3,000 employees with an early-retirement program who accepted buyout and planned to eliminate as many as 10,000 jobs (around 14 percent of the 73,400 total employees before curtailment).[15][16] During the 2011 analyst call, Cisco's CEO John Chambers called out several competitors by name,[17] including Juniper and HP.
[edit] Media and awards
Cisco products, most notably IP phones and Telepresence, are frequently sighted in movies and TV series.[18] The company itself and its history was featured in the documentary film Something Ventured which premiered in 2011.
Cisco was a 2002–03 recipient of the Ron Brown Award,[19][20] a U.S. presidential honor to recognize companies "for the exemplary quality of their relationships with employees and communities". Cisco commonly stays on top of Fortune "100 Best Companies to work for", with position No. 20 in 2011[21]
Cisco Systems Logo
Type Public
Traded as NASDAQ: CSCO, SEHK: 4333
Dow Jones Component
S&P 500 Component
Industry Computer networking
Founded San Francisco, California, U.S.
(1984)
Founder(s) Len Bosack, Sandy Lerner, Richard Troiano, Nicholas Pham
Headquarters San Jose, California, U.S.[1]
Area served Worldwide
Key people John Chambers
(Chairman & CEO)
Products Networking Device
Network Management
Cisco IOS and NX-OS Software
Interface and Module
Optical networking[disambiguation needed ]
Storage area networks
Wireless, Telepresence, VOIP, Security
Datacenter
List of Cisco Products
Revenue increase US$ 43.21 billion (2011)[2]
Operating income decrease US$ 7.67 billion (2011)[2]
Net income decrease US$ 6.49 billion (2011)[2]
Total assets increase US$ 87.09 billion (2011)[2]
Total equity increase US$ 47.25 billion (2011)[2]
Employees 63,465 (2011)[3]
Subsidiaries List of acquisitions
Website Cisco.com
apple
Apple, Intel Cherry-Picking Talent From HP's WebOS Team
By Kevin McLaughlin, CRN, January 23, 2012, 1600 hrs
Uncertainty in Hewlett Packard's WebOS business unit has opened the door for Apple, Intel and a host of mobile startups to lure away some of HP's sales and engineering talent.
Here's what we know about WebOS at this point: HP shuttered its WebOS hardware operations in October and has around 600 remaining WebOS employees. HP is open sourcing WebOS and the Enyo development environment, and it also has designs on getting back into WebOS tablets, although CEO Meg Whitman has said this probably would not happen until 2013.
What's still unclear is whether HP's future WebOS course will require the contributions of all the business unit's 600 employees. Whitman, in a December interview with The Verge, did not rule out additional WebOS layoffs. In the meantime, some mobile sales and engineering staff have decided to continue their careers at other companies.
One example is Venkat Vasireddi, former Senior Software Engineer/Technical Lead for WebOS products, who joined Apple earlier this month as a Senior Software Engineer, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Apple, which over the course of the past year has been quietly building its indirect channel capabilities and courting Microsoft partners for iOS integration work, also recently, hired two of HP's WebOS channel managers.
Matt Schnell, former WebOS National Sales Manager in HP's Solution Partners Organization (SPO), joined Apple in November as Director, iPhone Business-to-Business Sales. He joined Palm in 2005 and held a variety of sales roles prior to HP's $1.2 billion acquisition of the company in 2010, including Director, Business-to-Business Channels, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Jim Dudenhoefer, former National Sales Manager for HP's enterprise focused WebOS Sales Specialists Team, joined Apple earlier this month as Regional Sales Director for the company's iPhone channel, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Dudenhoefer joined Palm in 2006 and served in a variety of sales management roles there. This is actually Dudenhoefer's third stint with Apple: He was a Senior Account Executive from 2002 to 2006, and an Account Executive from 1993 to 1997.
Apple did not respond to a request for comment on the hires. But in all three cases, the employees joined Apple the same month they left HP, according to their LinkedIn profiles.
Were they recruited away from HP? CRN was unable to verify this, but Apple and Palm do have a long history of recruiting each other's talent. In the most notable case, Palm hired former Apple executive Jon Rubinstein in June 2007 and elevated him to CEO two years later. He is still at HP as Senior Vice President of product innovation for the Personal Systems Group.
In August 2007, the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs reached out to Ed Colligan, Palm's then-CEO, to propose that the companies agree not to hire away each other's employees. Colligan reportedly declined on the grounds that doing so would be potentially illegal.
Meanwhile, HP declined to comment on how many WebOS employees have left the company and how many remain. HP did say that the WebOS departures would not impact the company's plan to distribute WebOS under an open source license.
"The development tasks necessary to bring an open source WebOS to market are under way and HP will be an active contributor to the community after the code is published," an HP spokesperson told CRN in an emailed statement. "We will communicate a roadmap and timeline for publishing the WebOS source code as soon as possible."
Intel has also been bringing in ex-HP WebOS talent as the chipmaker looks to raise its profile in smartphones and tablets.
In November, Intel hired Larry Barras, who spent three years at HP and Palm as principal software architect for WebOS, as a Software Engineering Manager in the Intel Ultra Mobility Group, according to his LinkedIn profile. Barras left HP in October, and it's unclear if he resigned or was part of the first round of WebOS layoffs that took place that month.
Margaret Burgraff, who spent two and a half years at HP and Palm as Senior Director of quality assurance for WebOS, joined Intel in November as Senior Director of worldwide quality, according to her LinkedIn profile. She previously spent more than 15 years at Apple in various quality assurance management roles.
Intel declined to comment on the hires.
Intel got a late start in mobility, but at CES earlier this month, it unveiled a "multi-year, multi-device" strategic partnership with Motorola Mobility that will combine Intel's newest Atom Z2460 processor, dubbed Medfield, with Motorola's Android-based devices.
Mobility startups are also taking advantage of the uncertainty surrounding WebOS. MobileIron, a mobile device management startup, in December hired Renchi Raju, Director, WebOS system user interface and platform userspace at HP, as a Director of Engineering.
Larry Leonardi, an HP regional solution specialist for WebOS, started with MobileIron earlier this month as channel enablement manager for the Northeast Region. A spokesperson for MobileIron confirmed both hires in an email to CRN.
Leonardi spent five years at Palm as National Sales Manager, managing the company's business-to-business channel, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Mobilisafe, a mobile security startup that's currently in stealth mode, in December hired Sajal Sahay, former VP of Carrier Channel Marketing for WebOS, as VP, Marketing.
The recent WebOS departures follow the high profile exits of Michael Rizkalla, Senior Director of WebOS Application Development at HP who left in November for a position as Senior Director of mobile applications at Xobni, a San Francisco based social media startup; and Richard Kerris, former VP, WebOS worldwide developer relations, who left in November and joined Nokia as head of global developer relations.
Turnover in the IT business is a fact of life, so it may be too far a leap to view the recent WebOS departures are part of a mass exodus of mobile talent from HP. At the same time, there's no arguing that competition in this space is growing more intense by the day, and that holding onto mobile talent will continue to be a challenge, for all vendors.
cisco
Cisco Plans Refresh For Switching, Routing Line
By Chad Berndtson, CRN, February 2, 2012, 1630 hrs
Cisco has confirmed significant updates to its major Ethernet switching lines, as well as disclosed plans for a major upgrade cycle on its key integrated services router (ISR) line.
Among the big changes on the switching side are that Cisco has added 40G Ethernet to the Catalyst 6500 and also added 40/100G Ethernet to its Nexus 7000 data center switch.
Any updates to Cisco's switch lines, of course, affect a major installed base. Craig Huitema, Director, Data Center Solutions, Cisco said, “Cisco has shipped in excess of more than 10 million 10G Ethernet ports but that the enterprise and service provider transition to more robust Ethernet is well underway.”
The updated Catalyst 6500 switches will be available in April, while the updated Nexus 7000 will be available later in the second quarter of calendar 2012. Cisco plans to put 40G Ethernet on its Nexus 5000 switches next, Huitema added.
Cisco is also launching two new fixed configuration switches, the Catalyst 4500-X, a 40-port 10 GbE switch intended for constrained campus environments wanting easy compatibility with virtualized networks, and the Nexus 3064-X, which adds additional bells and whistles, such as QSFP+ ports.
Further, Cisco is adding network virtualization capabilities to its Catalyst 6500, Catalyst 4500 and ASR 1000 products using a technology Cisco calls the Easy Virtual Network configuration, plus a virtual services appliance for the data center, the Nexus 1010, which supports Cisco's six-month old Virtual Extensible LAN (VXLAN) capability for scaling different data center workloads. Cisco confirmed that the Nexus 1000V virtual switch also now supports VXLAN.
“The new switches will apply to Cisco's major partner incentive programs, such as VIP, TIP and OIP,” said Wenceslao Lada, Vice President, Worldwide Channels for Borderless Networks, Cisco. “Partners should also expect new value-added services opportunities in the coming months.”
Cisco is also in the midst of a major routing refresh; one that its top routing executive says will bring even more services and other capabilities onto its integrated services routers (ISR).
Praveen Akkiraju, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Services Routing Technology Group, Cisco said the expansion of Cisco's routing expertise is a big part of that strategy, and that future ISR upgrades would be made with cloud computing in mind.
The routing blitz by Cisco is actually a defensive move, as well. Cisco announced end of sale for the first-generation ISR in November, meaning that a huge routing installed base will need to be steadily migrated. That presents an opportunity for Cisco channel partners, Akkiraju acknowledged, and also a threat, based on router competitors who will try to sway customers to change their routing options instead of upgrade to more Cisco.
"This is a unique opportunity for partners to upgrade the installed base," Akkiraju said. "So we are focused on helping them understand how they can use trends like cloud and mobility, and how we have prepared the routers, to drive a big upgrade cycle. Over the course of the year, you are going to see us announce many more cloud-based solutions, especially connecting the assets we have to the cloud in a way that is meaningful for customers."
Lada added that Cisco is now running workshops and doing other outreach with partners to educate customers on continuing to invest with Cisco's routing strategy. Cisco partners will see added incentives for routing upgrades, particularly around services, in Cisco's various partner incentive programs, he said
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