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+--- Thread: Cisco (CSCO) (/showthread.php?tid=282)
RE: Cisco (CSCO) - Roadmap2Retire - 02-11-2016
Wow...what a massive increase from CSCO! Looks like CSCO is feeling really confident about the future prospects. Congrats to the shareholders on the pay raise!
Ive been watching these comments and felt like I needed to chime in since I work in the industry. I almost joined CSCO a couple of years when I interviewed with them, but things didnt align with my career plan and had to pass on that opportunity. I worked for a startup that was not a direct competitor with CSCO, but was kinda/sorta related, until 2 weeks ago. Our company got bought out by a direct competitor to CSCO - Juniper Networks (JNPR) - so I am now directly competing with CSCO
But I digress. Back to the topic. CSCO is a behemoth. For the past few decades, they have led the industry and some of the best technical industry standards came out of CSCO (almost every internet standard out of 80s, 90s and 2000s came from the researchers in CSCO - so you have CSCO to thank if you use the internet these days). But of late, they had grown a bit sluggish and John Chambers (ex-CEO and now Chairman of CSCO) really worked hard at turning the ship around and has done a fantastic job. It had almost come to a verge of "has-been" company that had seen its best days (shedding the old static big expensive switches/routers for its bread-and-butter that others could manufacture for a fraction of the cost). They are also focusing on NFV/SDN (which our startup was specializing in and was able to disrupt the space to quite an extent) and the IoT focus helps.
All to say, you cant rest on old laurels in the tech industry. If you stand still, its like moving backwards as the industry advances so fast. The combination of this (companies are born and die faster), the fact that its easy to disrupt the industry leaders by startups and more importantly, on a personal front - my job/salary comes from the industry are the three main reasons stopping me from investing in tech.
But my views shouldnt be taken as a bear case. Its still a great investment and these are exciting times - thats why I love working in this industry