Ciscoは現金をいっぱい持っていることと、やはり敵が基本的に弱い、という両面で当面強い地位を確保する、とうい内容。
HPの3COMの買収で果たして状況は変わるのであろうか？ HPは自社のProCurve戦略と３COMを組み合わせることで差別化を生もうとしているのでは、と評価できるかも知れない。
Cisco's advantages and challenges. Comparisons to Juniper, ProCurve, Brocade.
August 5, 2009
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* Analysis by: Michael Horsch Fizz
* Analysis of: Cisco's Sales Will Drop as Much as 17%, Chambers Says
* Published at: www.bloomberg.com
Summary
Cisco's strengths and challenges for their first fiscal quarter and beyond can be further defined when we compare them to their competition. Juniper, HP ProCurve, Avaya, Brocade (Foundry), Nortel, 3COM are vendors that can help us define and understand Cisco.
Cisco's success may very well be due to the weakness of their competition versus the strengths of Cisco. In addition, with $30 plus billion of cash they are better positioned than most.
Analysis
Let's look at Cisco through the eyes of clients, partners and challengers. Cisco remains the dominant vendor when we review network infrastructure market share. Cisco's latest financial performance and operational belt tightening are the rule and not the exception for vendors during our global drought. However, we do see some valid challenges for Cisco. Some challenges can be clearly defined by competitive vendors. For example, the quality and performance of Juniper's routing and switching hardware combined with favorable and consistent reviews of the JUNOS OS could certainly challenge Cisco. The difficulty we have seen with Juniper has been their lack of go-to market aggressiveness. If this remains status quo, Juniper will not rock Cisco's dominance as many predicted. Another challenger is HP with ProCurve. HP's ProCurve division has done an exceptional job in winning over resellers and systems integrators who have in turn successfully represented ProCurve to price sensitive clients. HP's lower price points and low or no maintenance cost solidified the deal for many. It is in my opinion, HP may be the greatest thorn for Cisco as we continue into the second half of this drought. When your flagship products MUST comply with strict industry standards and protocols by definition we have a commodity. Perceptions of Cisco being "overly priced" does bode well for the competition for products that can be defined as a commodity.
In areas such as Unified Communications (UC) and Hosted Unified Communications, Cisco as well as Avaya may be best positioned for the slow but continuing adoption of this maturing technology sector. UC has been placed on the back burner for many of our large clients. However, as we continue to see stabilization in tech spending and a healthier pipeline moving forward, it is inevitable these areas will see reasonable growth. If Cisco can leverage their large partner reseller base in the next two quarters as well as partnered service providers they should do well. Once again, their success may very well come due to the weakness of their competition and not necessarily on the strengths of Cisco.
Cisco's ability to diversify without moving too far from the center has served them well during these challenging times. Storage switching was a strategic move that will continue to reap benefits for Cisco. Their primary rival in the sector, Brocade will be increasing the heat as they finally have all the operational fires burning from the Foundry acquisition. However, we do need to keep it in perspective. Brocades greatest challenge will be to expand Foundry's success beyond ISP's and hosting centers. Perhaps Foundry's success in the govt. sector can be better leveraged by Brocade to spring board success into other verticals.
Cisco clients and partners have a strained loyalty to Cisco. Clients have reduced their IT budgets prompting them to challenge Cisco by asking for deeper discounts and shopping for alternatives. However, not surprisingly Cisco has retained their client base in the large enterprise. To extricate an existing networking vendor from a enterprise client is perhaps one of the greatest vendor challenges in the industry.
With $30 plus billion of cash, Cisco is better positioned than most. In the last eight quarters, old rivals such as 3COM and Nortel have had far less traction and influence with clients and systems integrators alike. In summary, Cisco will remain on top albeit a bit leaner. Due to their diversification of solutions, scratched but solid large distribution network, coupled with the weaknesses of many of their rivals Cisco will retain their network infrastructure leadership position.
August 5, 2009
PrintEmail to a FriendTweet this Analysis
* Analysis by: Michael Horsch Fizz
* Analysis of: Cisco's Sales Will Drop as Much as 17%, Chambers Says
* Published at: www.bloomberg.com
Summary
Cisco's strengths and challenges for their first fiscal quarter and beyond can be further defined when we compare them to their competition. Juniper, HP ProCurve, Avaya, Brocade (Foundry), Nortel, 3COM are vendors that can help us define and understand Cisco.
Cisco's success may very well be due to the weakness of their competition versus the strengths of Cisco. In addition, with $30 plus billion of cash they are better positioned than most.
Analysis
Let's look at Cisco through the eyes of clients, partners and challengers. Cisco remains the dominant vendor when we review network infrastructure market share. Cisco's latest financial performance and operational belt tightening are the rule and not the exception for vendors during our global drought. However, we do see some valid challenges for Cisco. Some challenges can be clearly defined by competitive vendors. For example, the quality and performance of Juniper's routing and switching hardware combined with favorable and consistent reviews of the JUNOS OS could certainly challenge Cisco. The difficulty we have seen with Juniper has been their lack of go-to market aggressiveness. If this remains status quo, Juniper will not rock Cisco's dominance as many predicted. Another challenger is HP with ProCurve. HP's ProCurve division has done an exceptional job in winning over resellers and systems integrators who have in turn successfully represented ProCurve to price sensitive clients. HP's lower price points and low or no maintenance cost solidified the deal for many. It is in my opinion, HP may be the greatest thorn for Cisco as we continue into the second half of this drought. When your flagship products MUST comply with strict industry standards and protocols by definition we have a commodity. Perceptions of Cisco being "overly priced" does bode well for the competition for products that can be defined as a commodity.
In areas such as Unified Communications (UC) and Hosted Unified Communications, Cisco as well as Avaya may be best positioned for the slow but continuing adoption of this maturing technology sector. UC has been placed on the back burner for many of our large clients. However, as we continue to see stabilization in tech spending and a healthier pipeline moving forward, it is inevitable these areas will see reasonable growth. If Cisco can leverage their large partner reseller base in the next two quarters as well as partnered service providers they should do well. Once again, their success may very well come due to the weakness of their competition and not necessarily on the strengths of Cisco.
Cisco's ability to diversify without moving too far from the center has served them well during these challenging times. Storage switching was a strategic move that will continue to reap benefits for Cisco. Their primary rival in the sector, Brocade will be increasing the heat as they finally have all the operational fires burning from the Foundry acquisition. However, we do need to keep it in perspective. Brocades greatest challenge will be to expand Foundry's success beyond ISP's and hosting centers. Perhaps Foundry's success in the govt. sector can be better leveraged by Brocade to spring board success into other verticals.
Cisco clients and partners have a strained loyalty to Cisco. Clients have reduced their IT budgets prompting them to challenge Cisco by asking for deeper discounts and shopping for alternatives. However, not surprisingly Cisco has retained their client base in the large enterprise. To extricate an existing networking vendor from a enterprise client is perhaps one of the greatest vendor challenges in the industry.
With $30 plus billion of cash, Cisco is better positioned than most. In the last eight quarters, old rivals such as 3COM and Nortel have had far less traction and influence with clients and systems integrators alike. In summary, Cisco will remain on top albeit a bit leaner. Due to their diversification of solutions, scratched but solid large distribution network, coupled with the weaknesses of many of their rivals Cisco will retain their network infrastructure leadership position.
