Tag: Cisco

HPE’s bid to nab Juniper rattles Cisco

Posted on February 20, 2024 by - News

Hewlett Packard Enterprise‘s plans to snap up rival networking firm Juniper Networks is making some tech bigwigs worry about how the deal will shake up the wired and wireless networking market.

The £10 billion takeover – expected to wrap up by the end of this year or early 2025 – would give HPE the extra AI networking clout it needs to take on the likes of Cisco Systems.

Cisco Chair and CEO Chuck Robbins said it’s still too early for customers to ask about the megadeal even if the new combo would create room for direct competition with Cisco’s wireless kit.

“The one area where they have a lot of overlap is in wireless, and I don’t know if there’s any link to the fact that we had a 50 per cent increase in £1 million-plus wireless deals one after the other. So, it’s hard to say,” he said.

HPE spends £11 billion on Juniper

Posted on January 11, 2024 by - News

Former maker of expensive printer ink HPE is buying Juniper Networks in a £11 billion deal that sets up a fight for network supremacy in the AI era between HPE Aruba Networking and market leader Cisco Systems.

HPE said the deal to buy California-based Juniper gives it more AI networking power and doubles its networking business, making what it called in a statement a “new networking leader with a huge portfolio that gives customers and partners a tempting new choice to drive business value.”

HPE is paying £31 per share in a cash deal that expects to boost its non-GAAP EPS and free cash flow in the first year after the deal closes.

On a pro forma basis, the new networking segment will go up from about 18 per cent of total HPE revenue as of fiscal year 2023 to about 31 per cent and make more than 56 per cent of HPE’s total operating income.

Cisco shakes up flagship incentives

Posted on November 9, 2023 by - News

Cisco has shaken-up its flagship incentives for hardware, software, and as-a-service solution partners.

The networking vendor is adding up to six new solution specialisations within the next nine months.

Cisco VP of partner strategy and programmes Marc Surplus said the new Cisco Partner Incentive is the biggest change his outfit has made in more than a decade and is the capstone on the Cisco partner programme evolution started in 2020.

“In broadening Cisco’s suite of solution specialisations, we are helping our partners differentiate in the market and demonstrate their expertise in the technologies and solutions sought by customers,” he said.

Cisco taps Microsoft’s Rodney Clark as SME senior VP

Posted on November 7, 2023 by - News

Cisco has announced that Rodney Clark will join the company as Senior Vice President, Partnerships and Small and Medium Business.

Clark has a history as a global sales and business leader with deep channel experience.

In his new Cisco job, Clark will work on the company’s global ecosystem of marketplaces and the company’s position in managed services and cloud marketplaces, helping Cisco and its partners do better in the SME market.

Clark has worked for Microsoft for the last 25 years and held various senior sales leadership positions, including Corporate VP, Global Channel Sales and Channel Chief.

Before Microsoft, he spent nine years with IBM in sales, marketing, and management capacities. Most recently, he was the Chief Commercial Officer at Johnson Controls.

Tata joins Cohesity Data Security Alliance

Posted on September 28, 2023 by - News

Cohesity has announced that Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is joining the Cohesity Data Security Alliance ecosystem.

Cohesity and Data Security Alliance partners offer current and potential new customers a suite of data security and management solutions and services to help build a cybersecurity strategy and enhance cyber resilience.

This news builds upon Cohesity and TCS’ long-standing partnership and commitment to providing modern and automated data management solutions with end-to-end security.

Cisco buys Splunk

Posted on September 22, 2023 by - News

Cisco has snapped up unified security and observability platform developer Splunk for roughly $28 billion, claiming it will enable it to “drive the next generation of AI-enabled security and observability.”

The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of 2024, pending regulatory approval and other customary closing conditions, including acceptance by Splunk’s board.

The deal’s announcement comes roughly a year after Cisco reportedly put down a takeover offer for Splunk worth more than $20 billion.

Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins said: “From threat detection and response to threat prediction and prevention, we will help make organisations of all sizes more secure and resilient.”

Cisco sees revenue increasing

Posted on August 21, 2023 by - News

Cisco anticipates achieving revenue between $14.5 billion and $14.7 billion for the first quarter of fiscal 2024.

For the fiscal year 2024, Cisco aims for revenue from $57.0 billion to $58.2 billion. These projections follow the company’s revenue of $15.2 billion in the first quarter of fiscal 2023 and $56.998 billion throughout fiscal 2023.

In its recent fourth-quarter financial report, Cisco reported revenue of $15.2 billion– a 16 percent increase. The company’s net income for the same quarter stood at $4 billion.

Cisco plans to acquire cloud-native mobile core developer Working Group Two

Posted on August 14, 2023 by - News

Cisco plans to acquire cloud-native mobile core developer Working Group Two for $150 million.

Cisco said the acquisition will enable it to bolster its mobility services platform to help operators launch new offers across IoT and industry verticals.

The outfit is run as a joint venture between Cisco and Norwegian telco Telenor after it was spun out by the carrier in 2017.
Once the transaction is complete, Working Group Two will be fully owned by Cisco, with the new owner acquiring Telenor’s 44.6 percent stake in the entity.

Cisco wants to snap up Samknows

Posted on June 29, 2023 by - News

Cisco wants to buy the UK-based privately held broadband network monitoring company SamKnows.

The move is part of its cunning plan to extend Cisco ThousandEyes’ hybrid workforce product.

In the last few years, hybrid work has dramatically expanded the role of broadband networks, and companies are increasingly dependent on these networks to connect customers and employees to applications and services, Cisco said.

SamKnows offers visibility and insight into consumer broadband networks, enabling network operators to see and improve network performance and application experience for their customers.

Ethernet switch market grows

Posted on June 13, 2023 by - News

The worldwide Ethernet switch market grew revenues 31.5 per cent year over year in the first quarter of 2023 to $10 billion.

According to Beancounters at IDC the entire worldwide enterprise and service provider (SP) router market recorded $4.1 billion in revenue in 1Q23, a 14.1 per cent annual increase.

The Ethernet switch market’s growth of 31.5 per cent in 1Q23 builds on annualised growth of 3.3 per cent in 4Q22 and 19.4 per cent for the full year 2022. In 1Q23, the Ethernet switch market strengthened across the data and non-data centre segments. Revenues in the non-datacentre/enterprise campus and branch segment grew 38.7 per cent yearly, while port shipments rose 14.1 per cent. Revenues in the data center portion of the market rose 23.2 per cent year over year in the first quarter of 2023, while port shipments increased 19.7 per cent.

Cisco adds AI to its security and collaboration products

Posted on June 8, 2023 by - News

Cisco is installing generative AI into both its security and collaboration products.

The plan, announced at Cisco Live 2023, is that the outfit will harness large language models (LLMs) to help businesses ramp up productivity and automate simple tasks for their workforces.

Generative AI is being seen as the greatest thing since sliced bread for many customers and opens the door to a reimagined collaboration experience.

For example instead of listening to a 90-minute meeting AI can write a summary to give us the high points

Cisco brings in deferred payment scheme

Posted on May 8, 2023 by - News

Cisco is allowing customers to defer payments for new products to defer all payments until 2024.

Dubbed the Cisco Capital Business Acceleration Programme it means that partners can provide customers with another flexible payment option.

Cisco thinks cash flow is a major concern for its customers and partners and all its solutions will be eligible for this programme, including hardware, software, and services, and select partner services and third-party hardware.

Customers using too many security products

Posted on April 18, 2023 by - News

Customers are continuing to buy too many security products and the channel is missing an opportunity to guide them through a consolidation process, according to Cisco senior vice-president of global partner sales Oliver Tuszik.

This trend is a surprise as it had been thought that given the “economic headwinds” everyone is complaining about firms would be cutting back on the number of security products that they clearly don’t need.

Tuszik said:“It is still a shocking surprise that most of our customers have a huge amount of different security tools – even small business which have 200 people [are] normally running up to six different tools to manage their security part. When you go into large corporate enterprise business, they normally have more than 50 and up to 100 different tools, and then often from at least 20 different vendors.”

He added that customers are facing difficulties in finding skilled staff to manage those numerous tools, with the security skills shortage continuing to be a headache globally.

Cisco to offer air gapped security

Posted on April 14, 2023 by - News

Networking king Cisco plans to deliver an air-gapped, cloud-based collaboration system for companies involved in US national security and defence work.

Beginning in 2024, the new Webex system — Air-Gapped Trusted Cloud — will provide an added layer of security for teams collaborating through the Webex App, Cisco said.

An air gap isolates a computer or network and preventing it from establishing an external connection. An air-gapped computer cannot connect to the internet or any other communications networks to have complete security with the information that resides within it.

Currently, the US government has an established approach to security assessment and authorisation for cloud products and services for national security and defence. This includes air-gapped cloud deployments, which are isolated from public networks and operated on US soil by local staff with specific security clearances to handle sensitive data.

Cisco has training partnership with Multiverse in Manchester

Posted on March 31, 2023 by - News

Cisco announced its training partnership with Multiverse to fund and tailor professional apprenticeships for employees in its partner ecosystem in the Greater Manchester area.

The Tech Talent Accelerator programme will focus on business-critical skills in digital transformation and data analytics, helping accelerate the region’s digital careers.

More than 80 employees will join the new team so that partner organisations will benefit from training and development up to degree level, through independent learning, group workshops, and one-to-one expert coaching.