Cisco CEO Comes Out Swinging
CEO John Chambers planted his feet and aimed at his competitors during Cisco’s annual analysts’ day
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In summarizing Cisco’s outlook for the next two to three years, Chambers said, “If we do our job right, what you will find is that we will be the clear leader in the five foundational areas that determine the future of networking—and not just networking, but perhaps IT and business transformation. And we’ll be doing this with mobility and security across the five areas.
“We’ll be faster and more consistent in our innovation—the key word here is ‘consistent,'” Chambers said.
Chambers also said he expects Cisco to obtain 40 percent of its long-term growth from emerging markets compared with about 20 percent now.
In the meantime, Chambers said he is seeing positive signs from Cisco’s existing customers. “I haven’t called on a customer with Cisco in the last 120 days who isn’t going to keep their spending with Cisco, or increase it,” Chambers said.
Later in the day, CFO Gary Moore predicted annual sales growth of 5 percent to 7 percent by 2014, a slowdown from the range of 12 percent to 17 percent Cisco had been predicting until this year.
Chambers told analysts he plans to remain at the company for another three years. “The board of directors and the management are completely in sync,” he said.
Meanwhile, the company launched three new routers for the service provider market in support of its nV virtualisation package. The new products are designed to help service providers handle increases in data traffic from the huge upsurge of smartphones and tablet PCs.
