The Platform Opinions and Insights from Cisco

FIVE Years of Cisco Blogs!!

About.com tells me that the fifth anniversary gift is…wood.  I’m not sure what to do with that, but what I do know is that five years ago this past February we posted our first external blog entry on our first external blog. 

I’m proud to say I started the first blog at Cisco on the topic of High Tech Public Policy, and as Laura Ipsen, then the VP of Government Affairs (now SVP/GM of our Smart Grid Business Unit) stated in our first blog entry, entitled “Welcome,” the purpose of this medium was to interact and listen:

“Fundamentally, Cisco’s mission is to shape the future of the Internet by creating unprecedented value and opportunity for our customers, employees, investors and ecosystem partners. 

(Government Affairs’) vision is to use this blog to share our staff’s knowledge and opinions about government policy, legislation and regulation and the environment in which it is created.  Our global team members will be participating in this forum.  We hope you find our blog useful and informative.

We invite you to post your feedback and questions.  Above all, we hope that we can, in some small way, help you better understand the technology policies that are being talked about, debated and voted upon - whether that is through our own postings or from discussions that are created on this site.”

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Posted by John Earnhardt at 02:54PM PST

VIDEO | Cisco@25: SVP R&D Joel Bion Remembers Early Days

Continuing with our 25th anniversary celebration this year, we’re highlighting Joel Bion, SVP of Research & Advanced Development.  Joel has been with Cisco a little over 20 years and his best memory is the family-like atmosphere of Cisco.  He emhasizes Cisco’s “figure-it-out” attitude, no matter what the issue is.  This attitude, he says, has been carried over from the earliest days of Cisco to make it the successful company it is today.

Joel also discusses Cisco’s IOS software that was developed at the inception of the company and has continued to evolve, grow and meet the needs of our customer base.

In 25 years Bion says he wants: “people think of the network as always-on…and we’re always connected to it…and they no longer notice the devices they are using…and the network is essential to their lives and essential to how they communicate.”

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Posted by Lindsay Kniffin at 10:43AM PST

BOLD FACED Names at WEF2010 in Davos

Brad Pitt.  Lady GaGa.  Madonna.  Britney Spears.  Justin Timberlake.  Bono.  Montgomery Burns.

These luminaries of entertainment were not at the World Economic Forum last week in Davos, Switzerland.  Or, if they were, I certainly didn’t see them.  Although, Monty Burns would have been a welcome addition.

I thought I would post a list of names of people that I did see or run into at WEF.  Not to (only) namedrop, but just to demonstrate who the attendees of the conference actually are…to give you a sense of who attends…and that, really, it’s just a conference…with a lot of important government, media, business and academic people attending.

From Cisco: our Chairman and CEO John Chambers attended, along with EVP and Chief Globalization Officer Wim Elfrink...as well as our President of Europe, Chris Dedicoat; and President of Emerging Markets, Paul Mountford.  Tae Yoo, our SVP of Corporate Affairs also attended.  (Their names link to videos that they did while at WEF).

John Chambers participated on a plenary panel on “Rebuilding Education for the 21st Century,” which you can view here.  Fellow panelists were H.M. Queen Rania of Jordan, Irina Bokova, Trevor Manuel, Harold McGraw III and Riz Khan.

Who were some of the people that I saw there?

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Posted by John Earnhardt at 09:56AM PST

Cisco CFO Frank Calderoni on Q2 FY2010 Earnings

Video of Cisco CFO and EVP Frank Calderoni talking about Q2 FY2010.

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Posted by John Earnhardt at 01:23PM PST

Wim Elfrink, EVP, Chief Globalisation Officer, at WEF2010 in Davos

Wim Eflrink, EVP and Chief Globalization Officer, talks about his experience at WEF2010 in Davos, Switzerland.  He talks about sustainability, the relative mood of attendees this year compared to last, and what he hopes can be accomplished as a result of this year’s conference.

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Posted by John Earnhardt at 01:53AM PST

Tae Yoo, SVP, Corporate Affairs at WEF2010 in Davos

Tae Yoo, SVP Corporate Affairs, talks about her top take-aways from the World Economic Forum 2010 in Davos, Switzerland.  She talks about education, Haiti and a corporate social responsibility (CSR) award that we received at Davos from CCTV.

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Posted by John Earnhardt at 01:45AM PST

Paul Mountford, President Emerging Markets, at WEF2010 in Davos

Paul Mountford, President, Emerging Markets Theatre, shares his thoughts on this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. 

He says the mood is much better this year than last and that health care and education were key areas of focus for him.

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Posted by John Earnhardt at 01:34AM PST

John Chambers: View from Davos at WEF with CNBC

At the World Economic Forum 2010, Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers chats with the always great interviewer Maria Bartiromo of CNBC.  This is John’s 11th straight attendance at WEF and he compares this year’s WEF to last year’s and talks about the “mood” of fellow WEF attendees.

CNBC writes: “Most of the global economies have stabilized,” John Chambers, CEO of Cisco, said. “Here in Davos, the mood is much more positive than a year ago, especially for the technology companies. And that’s natural because when economies start to recover, you apply first technology – get your productivity up – then you add jobs.”

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Posted by John Earnhardt at 10:06AM PST

Tae Yoo Accepting CCTV CSR Award at WEF2010

Tae Yoo, Cisco SVP for Corporate Affairs, accepted the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Award from CCTV (a leading business channel in China) last night in Davos, Switzerland at their World Economic Forum “China Night.”  CCTV sponsored a survey in China to identify the “top 10 most influential multinational companies in China.”  Cisco was honored to be named to CCTV’s list…and honored to accept the CSR award from CCTV.

Tae* accepted the award on behalf of Cisco China employees and thanked CCTV for this prestigious award.

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Posted by John Earnhardt at 05:16AM PST

Chris Dedicoat, President Cisco Europe, at WEF2010

Chris Dedicoat, President of Cisco Europe, shares his views on attending this year’s World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland…his fifth year as an attendee  He talks about the relative “feel” of attendees toward the economy, the focus of attendees on green issues and smart grid, and more.

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Posted by John Earnhardt at 04:10AM PST

Marthin De Beer’s 3 Tech Areas to Watch in 5 Years

As senior vice president of Cisco’s Emerging Technologies Group, Marthin De Beer is heavily involved in fashioning tomorrow’s technologies.

So as he was unveiling yesterday’s announcement of a second I-Prize global innovation competition at the Networkers at Cisco Live crowd in Barcelona, it made sense to ask him which far-out technology areas he would pick to keep an eye on in, say, five years’ time.

If you fancy yourself as a bit of a futurologist, you might want to look away at this point and jot down your own top technology picks for five years hence. When I put the question to De Beer, he kicked off his choice of technologies to watch with collaboration, and particularly…

1. Video

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Posted by Jason Deign at 09:14AM PST

Help for Haiti

Our hearts go out to those affected by the devastating earthquake in Haiti. In the earthquake’s aftermath the world has seen the terrible images and heard tragic stories and it’s in times like these that individuals, employees and companies ask, “What can I do to help?”

Our immediate response included a donation from the Cisco Foundation of US$250,000 to the American Red Cross and the matching of employee donations up to US$1 million. Our internal campaign was quickly extended to other NGO partners including CARE, Doctors Without Borders USA, and NetHope, Inc., plus the Australian Red Cross, British Red Cross, Canadian Red Cross, and Hong Kong Red Cross to provide local giving choices in areas where we have high concentrations of interested non-US employees.

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Posted by Robyn Jenkins Blum at 05:00AM PST

Cisco helps the 22nd Australian Scout Jamboree Reach New Digital Heights

The Australian Scout Jamboree is the biggest event in the Australian scouting calendar and this year the 22^nd Australian Jamboree, was the largest since Australia hosted the World Jamboree in 1988. Around 12,000 scouts, leaders and volunteers converged from all points of the country and the globe at Cataract Scout Park in New South Wales, Australia to camp for two weeks of fun, adventure and friendship.

This year Cisco Australia and New Zealand supported the vision for a digital jamboree, setting a new standard for jamborees with an integrated technology platform that enabled attendees to stay connected and share their experiences with family and friends as well as scouting communities around Australia and abroad.

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Posted by Linda Horiuchi at 07:05PM PST

De Beer Announces End of the Word at Cisco Live

That’s the end of the written word, by the way… or pretty much.

Listening to Marthin De Beer, Senior Vice President of Cisco’s Emerging Technologies Group (ETG), who this morning addressed the Networkers at Cisco Live crowd in Barcelona, it’s easy to believe that in a few years you won’t be reading this anymore.

You’ll be watching it instead… because video is essentially taking over the (online) world.

According to De Beer, by 2013 90 percent of Internet traffic (and around half of all mobile traffic) will be made up of video, representing the biggest development in networking since voice and data first traveled along the same wire. It’s not a shift Cisco is worried about, though.

On the contrary, the company is doing its utmost to help the process, fired up by the growth in demand for video-based tools such as Cisco TelePresence, which has been sold to 550 enterprise customers since its launch in October 2006.

De Beer says video is “like chocolate”: once you try it it’s easy to get hooked. And getting people hooked depends on two things.

The first is simplicity. For all its high-definition, life-size, in-person brilliance, says De Beer: “the best thing we did with TelePresence was having the one-button push-to-talk feature. It’s CEO-proof.”

Building on this philosophy, Cisco is adding medianet capabilities to many of its existing technologies so business networks can handle video without creating a headache for IT administrators, and launching applications which harness the power of video but are simple to use.

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Posted by Jason Deign at 11:00AM PST

Cisco Named in FORTUNE’s “Best Companies to Work For” list

FORTUNE’s annual “Best Companies to Work For” list is out, and Cisco is proud and honored to have placed in the top 25 (No. 16 overall and No. 4 for large-sized companies) for the fifth consecutive year.

Cisco has been a part of this list ever year since its inception in 1998—our unique culture of transparency and openness continues to drive these types of recognitions. In addition, we greatly leverage our own technology to foster a more flexible work environment (average Cisco employee telecommutes twice a week), with better life balance.

Gone are the days of sitting in traffic to arrive for an early 7 a.m. meeting or staying late at the office for an 8 p.m. call—with WebEx, I can see and share documents with colleagues effortlessly. Although several of my teammates are globally dispersed, I meet and “see” them regularly with Cisco TelePresence.

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Posted by Ken Lotich at 03:43PM PST