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Cisco: The Apple of Networking?
At the Cisco Partner Summit this morning, top executives spent roughly two hours sharing their vision for Cisco Systems working in a collaborative world. But the session's most telling comment came at the very end -- when executives indirectly compared Cisco's future direction to Apple's heritage. In some ways, Cisco's statement was a jab at Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard.
The VAR Guy
April 28, 2010
1 Min Read
Cisco Apple iPad WebEx
At the Cisco Partner Summit this morning, top executives spent roughly two hours sharing their vision for Cisco Systems working in a collaborative world. But the session’s most telling comment came at the very end — when executives indirectly compared Cisco’s future direction to Apple’s heritage. In some ways, Cisco’s statement was a jab at Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard. Here’s the scoop.The last slide of this morning’s keynote presentation contained the following quote:
“People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware” – Alan Kay.
Kay is a Xerox PARC, Apple and MIT veteran. The quote is a thinly veiled reference to Cisco’s ambitions: Focus on both hardware and software to beat Microsoft in the unified communications market and Hewlett-Packard in the hardware market.
Can that strategy succeed? Hmmm… It already has over at Apple.
No doubt, Cisco has a lot of software experience. Still, nobody would ever accuse Cisco of designing truly elegant user interfaces. Is that about to change? Hmmm… Perhaps The VAR Guy is looking a bit too far into this.
Instead of focusing on traditional user interfaces, Cisco seems intent on collaboration software tied to video. No doubt, you’ve heard that Cisco is moving some of its applications — like WebEx — to the iPad.
Can Cisco really become the Apple of networking? Hmmm… It’s always nice to have stretch goals.
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