Cisco Subnet's top 10 Cisco stories of 2008

By Jim Duffy on Mon, 12/01/08 - 7:57pm.

What a year it has been watching Cisco. We've waited with bated breath for Cisco's next big acquisition - it has acquired five firms this year but nothing that compares in size to 2007's $3.2 billion purchase of WebEx - reported its first job cuts in years, and saw Cisco introduce a twice-a-year patch schedule for IOS. We'll spend this month taking a retrospective look at Cisco in 2008, and close the year with a few predictions. Pay close attention because there will be a quiz at the end of it (see how much Cisco news you remember by taking our 2007 Cisco quiz).

First up, let's take a look at the 10 most-read Cisco Subnet blog posts of 2008.

10. Close to tears at Cisco's shareholder meeting
An attendee to Cisco's annual shareholders' meeting in November wrote that he was close to tears after watching a video of Cisco CEO John Chambers' visit to the Sichuan Province of China, immediately after the area suffered a devastating earthquake last summer. Matthew Rafat writing in SeekingAlpha.com said attendees were shown a video of the effects of the earthquake and Chambers' efforts to help rebuild the infrastructure. According to Seeking Alpha Cisco donated $45 million to the rebuilding efforts.

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9. Linksys customer service number offers a different kind of 'service'
This happened in November 2007 but the post is our ninth most-read blog post. ValleyWag reported that Linksys mistakenly printed on its product box a number to a sex-talk chat line. As Cisco spokesperson, John Earnhardt explains in his Platform blog: "The day after Thanksgiving in the U.S., Linksys offered a special on its Wireless-G Home Router (WRH54G). Because this product is also offered in India, Linksys unintentionally failed to change the tech support number supplied with the product on materials in the box (Quick Install Guide and User Manual). The technical support number is a Toll-Free 1800 number owned by Linksys in India intended for our customers in India. Because of this error, customers who purchased the product in the US have a 1800 technical support number that does not dial into Linksys technical support."

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8. The cold evidence of Cisco's hiring freeze
During Cisco's Q1 earnings conference call in November, Cisco CEO John Chambers said the company would institute a hiring freeze among other efforts to cut costs as the vendor rides out the economic downturn. Later in the same month, Aaran Rakers, an analyst at Wachovia Capital Markets calculated that Cisco's total number of job listings plummeted 93% in one week.

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