Is Cisco Unloading To Pump Up The Numbers?

Just what's going on at Cisco? And is this a sign of things to come? Brad Reese has a stunning post today with his observation that Cisco may be over pushing product into their channels to help pump up the short term numbers. Brad's got some interesting data that shows it could be as much as $20 million dollars in channel stuffing?

Are other vendors doing this too, in order to minimize the impact of the economic downturn in the economy? Or is this limited to Cisco? I've not seen any evidence of it elsewhere but if you have, speak up here or contact me directly.

The other possiblity for this increase in accounts receiveable is they channel may just be slow to pay. If customers are slow to pay their suppliers, that will back up into the channel and eventually into Cisco. Cisco's known for the razor thin margins channel partners have to compete on. That doesn't leave much margin for error in cashflow. The channel could be hurting and causing this problem for Cisco and other vendors. If that's that case, we'll likely see increases in accounts receiveable of other vendors who are channel heavy. Microsoft fits that bill but the margins aren't razor thin like Cisco's gear, so it's unclear if we'll see this or to the same degree. 

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