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January 28, 2008
"Reinventing Cisco" and Cisco Nexus Data Center Switch
Mark Boslet of the San Jose Mercury News wrote an interesting story on our use of collaborative technology and collaborative management in Sunday's paper. The story is entitled "Reinventing Cisco," with the sub-head reading "Networking Giant Took on Two Major Projects in '07, Vows to Tackle 20 in '08 As It Pursues New Markets."
(San Jose Mercury News graphic)
Boslet writes, Cisco "is remaking the way it does business. With the goal of boosting productivity and profit while managing its rapid expansion, Cisco is turning itself into a showcase for Web 2.0 technologies such as social networking, blogging and online collaboration. The driving force behind the initiative is Chief Executive John Chambers' belief that the second phase of the Internet revolution is under way and it could be more far-reaching than the first." Read it, in full, here.
And on the "reinventing" side of things, we today announced our Cisco Nexus 7000 Series - the first Data Center Class Switching Platform. You can read more about it at our sister Data Center Blog here. And, if you don't want to read what we have to say, read this story by John Markoff of The New York Times who writes: the new switch has the capacity to "transfer all 90,000 Netflix movies in 38.4 seconds or send a two-megapixel digital image to every human being on earth in 28 minutes."
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January 26, 2008
Chris Dedicoat gives his take on the World Economic Forum in Davos
The Platform caught up with Chris Dedicoat, SVP for European Operations at Cisco to understand whether Web 2.0 technologies will form an enabling platform to help business and government move towards the greater collaboration advocated at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
We also asked Chris to give an overview of how Cisco is addressing the challenge of continuing to innovate as an organisation, within the context of this major theme at Davos.
Finally Chris was asked to give his take on the key themes and goals that he saw coming out of WEF 2008.
Post by Marc Musgrove, Global PR Manager
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Wim Elfrink, CGO video blog for the World Economic Forum, Davos
Wim Elfrink, chief globalisation officer, Cisco, spoke with us today to give his perspective on his recent trip with John Chambers to the Middle East just ahead of the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.
We asked him to give us an overview of the key collaborations that Cisco advanced with leaders in the region and provide more perspective on Cisco's focus on real estate solutions and the digital cities projects.
Wim was also asked for his perspective on the relevance of globalisation as a focus for the conference given the growing number of leaders from emerging economies participating in the congress.
Post by Marc Musgrove, Global PR Manager
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January 24, 2008
VIDEO: Cisco's Paul Mountford @ WEF
On day 2 of the World Economic Forum in Davos, The Platform spoke with Paul Mountford, SVP for Emerging Markets for Cisco outside the Congress Centre.
We asked Paul to provide his take on why he sees value in participating in this year's conference, the big conversations happening at Davos, and to outline how he sees the Davos theme of the power of collaborative innovation being implemented in real life as a part of Cisco's strategy for supporting country transformation in Emerging Markets. He also addressed how the emerging markets team will scale to address the growing opportunity coming out of emerging markets.
Post by Marc Musgrove, Global PR Manager
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VIDEO: Cisco's John Chambers @ WEF
Our Chairman and CEO, John Chambers, is a regular attendee of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland. In this video produced for and posted by WEF, he answers the following questions:
1. What does the Annual Meeting theme "the Power of Collaborative Innovation" mean to your business?
2. In which new ways are people and organizations collaborating? How important is this for effective competition in your industry?
3. Do you think we are seeing a significan shift in the way the public and private sectors can collaborate? What are the implications for business?
4. In what ways is Cisco using new communications channels, such as blogging and social networking websites to reach internal and external audiences? Have these channels forced you to rethink your communications strategy?
More videos from WEF can be viewed here.
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January 23, 2008
VIDEO: Cisco's Tae Yoo @ Davos
We caught up with Tae Yoo, Cisco's SVP of Corporate Affairs at the end of the first day of the World Economic Forum at Davos 2008 to get her perspective on the major trends outlined for the conference.
We discussed the following questions:
1. The main theme that Klaus Schwab outlined for WEF this year is the 'Power of Collaborative Innovation." How does this apply to Cisco's efforts around corporate social responsibility and its work with disparate organisations?
2. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice alluded to education as a base line for building global security in her opening address to the congress. How closely engaged is Cisco in supporting education initiatives with WEF?
3. Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri, Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, highlighted that corporations and countries need to embrace initiatives to address climate change in order to avoid business impact in the future. What role does collaboration have to play in supporting this initiative?
Post by Marc Musgrove, Global PR Manager
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January 22, 2008
Fortune Magazine: Cisco Best Place to Work
Okay, so we're actually #6 on the Fortune "100 Best Places to Work" list, up from #11 last year. This is, however, our 11th straight year on the list. Which shows our commitment to employees as well as our consistency in the marketplace. Being a great place to work is a bit of a circular argument: we know we couldn't be a great place to work if we didn't have customers who want our products. We wouldn't have great products if we didn't have great engineers who want to work at a great place...and our innovative products and technology are borne from what our customers want. So, thank you, customers, for making Cisco a great place to work!!!
Congratulations to Google for, once again, being named the #1 place to work...as well as to our Silicon Valley neighbors on the list: Genentech (#5), Network Appliance (#14), Adobe (#40), Intuit (#43), Ebay (#68), and Yahoo (#87).
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January 18, 2008
VIDEO: CEO John Chambers at the San Jose Mercury News
We recently took our Chairman and CEO, John Chambers, over to the San Jose Mercury News to talk about a variety of topics and meet the new Executive Editor, Dave Butler, and new publisher, Jeff Kiel. In a very Web 2.0 fashion, they took video of some of the session and it is now posted on their homepage at MercuryNews.com.
In the video below (requires Adobe Flash), John answers the following questions:
1. How will a possible recession affect Cisco?
2. Where is Cisco going in the next few years?
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January 17, 2008
Hats off to Google
Today, there is a lot of media coverage on the launch of Google.org, their philanthropic arm. Over the next three years, it will spend up to $175 million in its first round of grants and investments. They should be congratulated for putting their money where their heart is. We can certainly sympathize with Google.org's executive director, Dr. Larry Brilliant (who likely would have been hired even if he didn't have that last name), who says that is has been difficult to choose which charities and non-profits to give to. To help alleviate some of that angst at Cisco, we focused on education, basic needs and economic opportunities early on.
In the early days of Cisco, stories are still told about how employees would jump the fence to volunteer at the Costano school next door in East Palo Alto...a school that we are still involved with. We are also very active in volunteering and donations to Second Harvest, the largest domestic hunger-relief organization in the US, among many other volunteering and philanthropic activities around the world.
So, congratulations to Google for having a good heart. And, if you would like to see what Cisco does on a global basis on education, basic needs and more, please view our Corporate Social Responsibility site.
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January 14, 2008
WebEx Co-founder Book: "Why Buy the Cow?"
Communications, globalization and automation have flattened the world and transformed the competitive landscape. The traditional competitive advantages of size and scale have been replaced by speed and flexibility and new Web technologies have enabled a multitude of disruptive new business models. In “Why Buy the Cow?” the first book by Subrah Iyar, the co-founder of WebEx, examines these changes and how smart companies are reinventing business processes to create sustainable competitive advantage.
The introduction and first chapter is available today on News@Cisco.
Iyar’s book stitches together the rise of software as a service (SaaS), web collaboration, the changing role knowledge workers and the new opportunities web 2.0 technologies are creating. “Why Buy the Cow?” was edited by Dr. Cindy Gordon, CEO of Helix and features pieces by Heidi Collins, Steve Barth, Dave Snowden, and Bill Ives.
To purchase a copy of “Why Buy the Cow,” visit Cisco Press or Amazon.com.
Posted by John Earnhardt at 09:42 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Emerging Markets Discussed at CES
Cisco’s Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs Tae Yoo took center stage at the International CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas last week as a panelist in the inaugural technology and emerging countries program. Joining Dan Shine from AMD, William Swope from Intel, and James Utzschneider from Microsoft in the panel moderated by the Financial Times’ Paul Taylor, Tae discussed the successes and roadblocks companies face as they deploy programs in emerging countries. She also shared Cisco’s experience in building public-private partnerships to improve healthcare and education in Jordan, India and Afghanistan.
Tae, the steward of Cisco’s corporate social responsibility vision, followed a keynote by One Laptop Per Child founder Nicholas Negroponte and remarks by Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda. If you missed the panel, you can view the video podcast here.
Posted by John Earnhardt at 09:34 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
January 13, 2008
After the January sales...
While most of us are still unwrapping bargains picked up in the January sales, the retail industry is heading to New York this week for its annual conference: the NRF…or National Retail Federation conference and expo.
We will be there too, showing off some technologies that will change the way we do our shopping in the future. The retail team will also be talking about some remedies to those unpleasant ‘customer credit card data loss’ stories we all read about in 2007.
Pre-show I cornered Ed Jimenez, Director of Retail Marketing, and asked him what Cisco is doing for customers’ retail experiences, how we’re simplifying retail technology, how Apple iPods can be utilized in retail, and what retailers can do to stop customers’ credit card details ending up on the Internet.
Posted by David McCulloch at 09:49 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
January 11, 2008
Cisco @ CES and Bill Gates Last Day at Microsoft
Cisco at the Consumer Electronics Show? What? You guys aren't a consumer company.
To be sure, we have largely been an enterprise and service provider company...with other foci on small and medium business (or commercial) and now a new foray into the consumer space. You may not know it, but we may already be in your living room in the form of our Scientific Atlanta cable set-top boxes or our Linksys wireless routers. A full line-up of what we announced at CES and what we are starting to do in the consumer space can be found at our CES online press kit here. You can also listen to our VP of consumer marketing, Ken Wirt, talk about the concept of visual networking on this podcast.
We know we are nascent to the consumer space and we have to work as hard to understand and serve the consumer as hard as we work to understand and serve the enterprise or service provider. But one thing we can recognize is a good video. So, I have to give major props to Bill Gates and the Microsoft team for this great video of Gates preparing for his last days at Microsoft as shown at the CES show. Gates is very funny in this and obviously a great sport to do this video. The video features such luminaries as Steven Spielberg, Bono, Jay-Z, George Clooney, Jon Stewart, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Al Gore, Brian Williams...and a special cameo by "The Clapper." Godspeed, Bill Gates.
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January 09, 2008
Pew Research: Big Increase in Video on Web
The Pew Internet & American Life Project just released a study saying that 48% of internet users have been to video-sharing sites such as YouTube and that typical daily traffic has doubled in the past year. You can read the full report here.
The report states: "48% of internet users said they had ever visited a video-sharing site such as YouTube. A year ago, in December 2006, 33% of internet users said they had ever visited such sites. That represents growth of more than 45% year-to-year."
The Cisco PR team has been experimenting with video blogging and we utilize YouTube as our platform...heck, you may have missed this video of our CEO John Chambers saying that "video is the next killer application on the Internet." Confirmed again, of course, by Pew. : ) You can view all our videos on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/CSCOPR. You can view Chambers talking about video below (from our Financial Analysts Conference in September)
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January 04, 2008
Which CEO said: "The customer is not our highest priority"
In the spirit of the U.S. Presidential campaign season where candidates must differentiate themselves from other candidates...and, on occasion, unfortunately, "go negative" to highlight what they believe voters should know about their opponents, I offer you this Q&A with Juniper CEO Scott Kriens by Mark Boslet of the San Jose Mercury News.
Kriens states the following: "The highest priority for the company is our own employees. By contrast, we don't say it is the customer or it's the investor. If we make a priority out of making employees successful - the deal in return is that we get a commitment to reach the objectives that are the responsibility of that person."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you don't have any employees if you don't have customers or investors, right? Juniper is a good company and has been a good competitor to Cisco, but I think their CEO may have misspoken a bit here. At Cisco, we know that we don't (as employees) exist without customers, which is why they are our top priority. Employees and Shareholders round out our top three most important constituents, but customers are definitely #1. This is why our bonuses are based on customer satisfaction.
On the campaign front, congratulations to Senator Obama and Governor Huckabee. And, not to pooh-pooh their Iowa victories, but I think that all major candidates still remain viable past New Hampshire. Elections have gotten more national and as important as Iowa and New Hampshire are in the nominee selection process, I think that other states have more of a say now in who is their party's candidate. We shall see if I'm right on that front.
Posted by John Earnhardt at 09:06 AM Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)
