Cisco Systems customers suspect the company will use Cisco Live 2011 this week to begin reclaiming its lost share of the Ethernet switching market partially by introducing the Nexus 7009—a smaller version of the popular 7000 chassis at a price that is easier to swallow.
Cisco executives have said the company's message at Cisco Live would center on switching and cloud infrastructure and that it would make technical announcements that could change the face of the switching portfolio. Cisco has always differentiated its products with custom silicon that enables much higher functionality, but in recent years competitors have used merchant silicon to build cheaper 10 GbE switches.
EtherealMind blogger Greg Ferro says that the merchant silicon used by competitors has contributed to Cisco's weakened hold in the switching market. Cisco announced the Nexus 3000, based on merchant silicon, which is touted as the super-fast switch to turn to when users need lowest possible latency for high-frequency apps.
As Cisco works to refocus efforts around routing and switching, users would also like to see the company shape up SMARTnet, the technical assistance and support program that every shop is forced to invest in with Cisco networking components.
The current 10,000 figure is inconsistent with previous layoffs. During the tech bubble and the financial crisis, the company cut 20% and 6% of its workforce. Cisco's business model is being challenged and its pricing aggressively to retain market share. Cisco announced an upgrade to its Catalyst 6500 systems, a move that is expected to help the company preserve its market share by delaying customers from switching to another system.
Despite the specter of perhaps the largest layoff in Cisco's history overhanging its annual customer conference , the company last week conducted business pretty much as usual at Cisco Live!
"We're structuring Cisco to be leaner, drive innovation faster," Chambers told the customer audience. Cisco has lost share and profits in switching, and its foray into consumer electronics has been disappointing.
Cisco also had a bloated management structure that stalled decision making, delayed product development and slowed the company's progress.
The upheaval still to come at Cisco did not dilute the company's mission at Cisco Live! Cisco also enhanced its data center and cloud portfolio with extensions to its Unified Computing Systems blade server chassis, its WAAS WAN acceleration appliances and its IronPort security line.
It was a curious announcement as Cisco had cited Catalyst 6500-to-Nexus 7000 switch migration and transition as a factor that eroded profits in its fiscal second quarter and helped set in motion the restructuring that Cisco's now facing.
Network topology issues may preclude enterprises from posting internally sensitive videos to a cloud service like YouTube, says Guido Jouret, Cisco's vice president of enterprise video and CTO of emerging technology.
Cisco Cloud CTO Lew Tucker hosted a panel of users, integrators, equipment manufacturers and service providers to discuss if enterprises in general are ready for the cloud. Cisco also used Cisco Live! It hosts racks of servers, switches and storage for high-level enterprise and government customers, including EBay, Cisco, cloud provider Joyent, and Global Cash Access (GCA), a leading provider of cash access, handling and information services for 1,000 casinos worldwide.
GCA is a Cisco Nexus switch, UCS, ASA firewall and MDS SAN customer - and also a customer of Cisco integrator Nexus -- contracting with Switch to collocate one data center at SuperNAP, while the company operates another at its Las Vegas headquarters.
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