Cisco Dips as Switching Business Sags

Cisco delivered a somewhat disappointing earnings report this week, with revenues from its core switching businesses falling 7 percent, and net income tumbling 18 percent.

Ask CEO John Chambers about it, and he’ll tell you that the product portfolio is simply evolving, with the established Catalyst switching platform facing pricing pressure from competitors, while Cisco is promoting the transition to its newer Nexus portfolio.

“What this means to me is that our new switching products are very strongly positioned with an architectural play, while addressing our competition from a price-performance perspective,” Chambers said. “This allows us to both grow our market and to continue to improve our margins over time with these new products, as you would expect us to do.”

At the same time, while competition in the networking space from rivals like HP and Juniper, Chambers said his company won’t be baited into a pricing war.

Enterprise Networking Planet takes a look at Cisco’s numbers, and reports on Chambers’ view of the company’s business outlook.

Read the full story at Enterprise Networking Planet:


Is Cisco’s Switching Business in Trouble?