If you want to hear what all of the buzz is about, make sure to check out our announcement, very cool!!:www.cisco.com/go/collaborationhttp://blogs.cisco.com/collaborationhttp://blogs.cisco.com/news/

“œWhat took ya so long?”-…was the pretty much the feedback we got from many in the industry analyst community when we shared our news on Cisco’s efforts to evolve it’s Small Business Channel Partner Program. The program became effective this week and the big shift was incorporating Linksys Small-Business Channel Partner Program into Cisco’s Channel Program and bringing the Linksys Business Series products into the Cisco SMB portfolio. http://www.cisco.com/web/partners/pr11/linksys.htmlNow, one might not have immediately put Cisco and Small Business together in the same sentence, except perhaps when you thought of Linksys and Cisco. Times change.Actually there’s more beyond the Channel program evolution at work from across the company, it’s just one of many efforts underway at Cisco to demonstrate its commitment to the SMB market. For example, earlier this summer, Cisco established a Small Business Council to align the company’s small-business strategy and go-to-market across all functions globally. The council was created to ensure that our small business customers and channel partners have access to the most comprehensive and innovative range of technology solutions in the communications industry. The Small Business Council is led by three Cisco veterans: Sue Bostrom, chief marketing officer and executive vice president; Keith Goodwin, senior vice president of Worldwide Channels and Ian Pennell, senior vice president of the Small Business Technology Group.Curious to your reaction to the changes we’ve made and any”council” you have for our Small Business Council as well…

Today Cisco announced the intent to acquire privately-held Jabber, Inc. This latest acquisition announcement further exemplifies Cisco’s build, buy, and partner innovation strategy to move quickly into new markets and capture key market transitions. Why Jabber, you ask?…Jabber’s technology leverages open standards to provide a highly scalable architecture that supports the aggregation of presence information across different devices, users and applications and federates across many different presence systems such as Microsoft Office Communications Server, IBM Sametime, AOL AIM, Google and Yahoo!. Hear more about Cisco’s intent to acquire Jabber on the Podcast website: http://www.cisco.com/go/arpodcasts What do you think about the addition of Jabber to the Cisco family?

The introduction of a 40 Gbps line card for a big router (http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2008/prod_091508.html) and things like an SLA and a cell-site router doesn’t necessarily jump off the page as the being one of the biggest things happening. But when you step back and take another look, you realize that Cisco’s September 15 announcement — focusing on video and business services, broadband mobility, and carrier-class reliability — was another significant point supporting what we’ve all been saying over the past year: video is having a huge effect. Consider . . . the YouTube phenomenon, the significant growth predictions provided by Cisco’s Visual Networking Index (http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2008/prod_061608b.html), and the growing acceptance that we are now in the Visual Networking era -just to name a few things. So, even if Monday’s announcement didn’t cause you to spill your coffee, the introduction of things like a line card, some new offerings, and enhancements to existing products are critical to Cisco’s support of video as the transformational medium for consumers and businesspeople alike.

As I dropped my four-year-old Emily to her first day of class at pre-kindergarten on Monday, I couldn’t help but to think about the activities/projects that her teachers have planned throughout the next 8-9 months for the class and hope/pray that would adequately prepare her for the BIG leap…to kindergarten (a different school) this time next year! Mommy anxieties…I get too many and too often. This “mommy moment” leads me to share with you an insightful perspective from a woman who has a passion for education, Tae Yoo, Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs. She talks about education for the new century and how it has changed little since the early 1900′s. Rethinking Education in the 21st CenturyTae speaks of the Four Pillars of Education Transformation and while they may be quite ambitious upon reading, I can definitely mull over them on my trips as Emily’s personal chauffeur to/from home/pre-kindergarten and beyond.Enjoy!

Exciting news! Today Cisco announced the intent to acquire PostPath, Inc. This acquisition is a tremendous display of commitment to Cisco’s collaboration growth strategy and innovative partnering.Why PostPath you ask? —-.The company extends Cisco’s Collaboration Platform through a Linux-based email, calendaring and collaboration software solution. These additions clearly augment Cisco’s Saas based WebEx Connect Collaboration Platform which currently includes- Instant Messaging, Wikis, Web 2.0 applications, Teamspaces and Document Sharing. In addition, PostPath’s email and calendaring software has: --native compatibility with Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Exchange. --compatibility with mobile clients such as Blackberry and ActiveSync.Upon the closing of the acquisition, PostPath is expected to become part of Cisco’s Collaboration Software Group and integrated with WebEx Connect and Cisco’s Unified Communications portfolios. Take a closer listen to the announcement and details of the acquisition on the Cisco Analyst Relations Podcast website:http://www.cisco.com/go/arpodcastsProvide your feedback on this acquisition: How do you think the addition of PostPath to Cisco’s portfolio will ultimately affect/influence the Collaboration marketplace?

So, if you are like me, you have been tuned in nightly to the Olympics in Beijing and watching all the dreams being realized --Nastia Liukin, The Redeem Team, and the Amazing Michael Phelps-.awesome stuff, great stories.Now, while I am an old school, couch-based consumer of the Summer games, this year the Olympics are being broadcasted by NBC over IP to three screens -the TV, the PC and the smart phone -providing consumers with a plethora of ways to stay in touch to what’s happening on the other side of the world. If there was ever a doubt that the visual networking era was upon us, this should put that argument to rest.This broadcasting first is made possible by the network’s departure from their historical tape-based approach to broadcasting toward one that relies on IP-based video. To do this, NBC turned to Cisco, and is relying on our video expertise and our Internet Protocol (IP) video network infrastructure and video-encoding solutions to broadcast more than 3,600 hours of broadcast coverage during the 17-day event. So while there’s plenty of history being made in the pools, gyms and on the track, by providing consumers to watch the games when, and where they want, its pretty clear that by making the move to IP, NBC has made some history of their own. Related Information:Links / URLs: - Podcast http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/podcasts/ciscocast_exec_mcintyre_080808.html - Videos: o NBC’s Overview of its Broadcast of the Beijing Olympics with Dave Mazza, senior vice president, engineering, NBC Olympicshttp://www.cisco.com/cdc_content_elements/embedded-video/service-provider/VOD_David_Mazza.wmvo NBC Discusses Its IP Network Coverage of Beijing Olympics w/Craig Lau, vice president of engineering, NBC Olympics http://www.cisco.com/cdc_content_elements/embedded-video/service-provider/VOD_Craig_Lau.wmv

Interesting move by HP to acquire Colubris. This gives ProCurve, HPs networking division, their .11n and vertical angle …so does this mean ProCurve will become a “Real” player in WLAN? Interested in your thoughts?HP To Acquire Colubris

If you missed Tuesday’s Q4 and FY 08 Financial Results Conference Call, here’s what I suggest to review for a quick recap (san financial details of course): Highlights and Technology Innovation -- http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2008/hd_080508b.htmlYou’ll find select customer announcements around the globe, major product announcements and acquisition highlights for the year. What more do you need? Cheers,Amy Poon

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As Cisco enters its fourth year of executing against its dedicated Emerging Markets (Russia and CIS, Central Eastern Europe, Latin America and Middle East and Africa) strategy, the value that industry analysts can play in helping Cisco shape and refine its approach could not be more critical. Over half the evaluation forms received at Cisco’s European and Emerging Markets Analyst Conference, held on the 24th and 25th June, listed Emerging Markets and Cisco’s Globalisation strategy as one of the key learnings or take aways from the event. Read More »

I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce myself, and to reinvigorate what I hope to be a broad and open dialogue between you-the industry analyst community-and the Cisco AR team. My name is Terry Anderson and I am VP of Corporate Communications here at Cisco, responsible for the public relations and community relations teams, and more recently, the industry analyst relations group as well. In my ten years here at Cisco, I have worked both directly and indirectly with the industry analyst community, and can attest to the appreciation we have of your broad customer and market insight, your willingness to debate and dialogue with our executive team, and most importantly, your candid feedback. In this spirit of two-way dialogue, I’d like to share with you a summary of comments made by John Chambers regarding Cisco and innovation during our third quarter fiscal year 2008 conference call last Tuesday. John’s comments struck me as perhaps a new way to think about innovation in the high tech industry. At minimum, certainly a clear focus on how Cisco innovates and our vision for how we view the role of intelligent networks in shaping the future of businesses, countries and communities. To recap at a high level, the 8 areas of innovation John highlighted include:

1. Product Innovation: This is the ‘traditional’ way that many people look at technology companies. Product innovations highlighted for this past quarter included the ASR 1000, the Nexus 7000 and 5000, AXP, TelePresence momentum, and Web -- http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2008/fin_050608.html
2. New Business Models: The network’s role in enabling innovation for our customers as what we believe will be the future of how technology should be viewed
3. Market Transitions: We believe innovation should be based on leading market transitions, as opposed to the traditional definition of innovation being viewed as a direct comparison to competitors
4. Technology Architectures: We believe this will be the way that our industry evolves, moving from boxes and software, operating systems, ASICs and services being independent components, to the future of technology architectures, where the network becomes the platform for all of IT and communications
5. Business Architectures: This is where Cisco will focus on a total architectural solution to achieve the top business priorities of our customers. The intelligent network enables these solutions. An example of how Cisco innovates in terms of our businesses top priorities is how we use collaboration and networked web 2.0 technologies to implement our strategies across 22 cross-functional priorities. Another example would be how we partner with countries to build their economic cities of the future.
6. Productivity Innovation: In many ways, Cisco led Phase I of the Internet in internal utilization with resulting productivity increases for both ourselves and our customers. We expect that the business models enabled by collaboration and networked web 2.0 will drive a very similar”instant replay” in Phase II of the Internet. It is this type of productivity opportunities that will cause, in our opinion, the investments in our industry to increase over the next 3-5 years.
7. Entertainment Innovation: This will be based on Visual Networking and will change everything from the way we interface between our family and friends, to how we watch sporting events with our community with common interests, to creating our own entertainment with different social networks. Cisco is moving rapidly in these market areas and may over time focus with our partners on how this will change business models, including advertising.
8. Organization Evolution: We believe that perhaps the most fundamental form of innovation in the market is what Cisco is leading moving from the traditional hierarchical command and control approach to collaboration and teamwork approach enabled by networked technologies.

So-your thoughts? Which of these resonate most with you (or don’t)? Again, your reactions, observations, feedback and input are welcome and valued. As for this blog, moving forward I’d like to use it as a platform for the global AR team to chat about news of note, concepts on our minds, the role of AR, the changing analyst landscape-you name it. Please weigh in-the broader, the bolder, the better. We look forward to hearing from you. Best Regards, Terry

How do you really know if an event was successful? I mean, really, really know?In true analyst fashion, I guess the answer to that is: It depends on the event.Take one of the three most important events in my life: my wedding. Original staging date: November 7, 1987. Successful? Well, we just passed the 20-year mark, we have two beautiful daughters (the other two events), and I’ve never been happier. I can’t speak for my wife, but she comes home every night, so I’m taking that as a positive sign. I know, I know. That one was pretty easy (not to mention a bit self-serving!). Let’s look at a more relevant event -C-Scape 2007. Original staging dates: December 11-12, 2007.Was it successful? Worthwhile? Did we -and more importantly, you -get what you needed out of it? Read More »

Post by Alan S. Cohen, Vice President, Enterprise & Mid-Market SolutionsLast week we completed our annual C-Scape event, an annual gathering of industry, & financial analysts, press and Cisco executives and thought leaders in close proximity for two days of dialogue, discussion and debate. Whether it was the select roundtables with key analysts, main tent sessions revealing our expanding vision as a software company or a WiMAX player, or guest speakers such as Steve Hellmuth, the CTO of the NBA clarifying the fan experience through the use of Web 2.0 technologies, I found the event intellectually electrifying, pivoting between the lofty peaks of evolving Cisco into more of an IT company and the deep challenges of supporting the ever expanding networking requirements of our millions of customers.With our key focus on the role of video and the rapidly approaching 2008 Oscars, I am turning to one of my favorite flicks, Jerry McGuire, to briefly channel some of my observations about C-Scape. Among Jerry McGuire’s many qualities is a series of memorable lines that can be applied to any situation. There were many rich and varied nuances and threads to C-Scape. Please excuse me the liberty of narrowing some of it down to a few movie lines. Read More »

Last weekend was pretty much a lost one for me, and this coming weekend will likely be more of the same. When you invite more than 400 industry influencers from across the globe to your backyard for two days of meetings and interactions, you can expect the last few days before everyone arrives to be filled with one or two last-minute issues.While I was working on Sunday on myriad things related to our upcoming C-Scape Global Forum, my computer suddenly went dark. I may have screamed out an expletive. My youngest daughter burst into the home office. Read More »