Cisco this week announced that James Richardson would be senior vice president of the enterprise line of business as of June 1. He succeeds Mario Mazzola, who is retiring, and who had been at Cisco since the company's acquisition of LAN switch start-up Crescendo in 1993.
Richardson also will immediately assume responsibility for Cisco's Application Technology Group, comprised of the former operations of recent acquisitions Amteva, Geotel and Webline.
``James is a 10-year Cisco veteran who has a proven record of success and brings a wealth of global operations experience to this crucial growth area for the company,'' CEO and President John Chambers said in a statement.
Previously, Richardson was president of Cisco's Europe-Middle East-Africa operations. He held that post for three years. Prior to that, Richardson was vice president of North American operations. He also ran operations in Latin America and the Pacific Rim, and launched Cisco's Canadian operation.
Under Mazzola's leadership, Cisco's enterprise line of business was instrumental in making Cisco the market leader in network equipment for the enterprise. The enterprise line of business accounts for over half of Cisco's sales.
Mazzola says the timing is right for his departure now that Cisco has attained leadership in LAN switching, and has delivered or announced the platforms necessary for voice/data integration, security and quality of service.
"I feel this is a very good moment. There is a lot to be done, but I think that this is really a moment in which in good faith I feel satisfied with what has been accomplished," Mazzola says. "It's also a time to be a little bit closer to my family and to be in a position to enjoy the security I have. I'm not the type of person who would go in a difficult moment."
Mazzola wanted to see Cisco's enterprise business through any potential difficulties associated with the Y2K transition.
The predicted slowdown in enterprise purchasing due to Y2K issues didn't materialize, so Mazzola "feels particularly good" about Cisco's LAN switching roadmap going forward.While the enterprise market industrywide has not enjoyed the kind of robust growth that the service provider and small/midsize business markets have, Cisco's enterprise business has outpaced the industry. That will continue, Mazzola says.
"We will do noticeably better than the industry [with] growth in the range of 25% to 35%" this year, he says. "I feel very bullish about this."
Growth will also be driven by enterprise infrastructure upgrades to support voice/video/data integration, virtual private networks, intelligent network services and Web content switching, he says. "The global outlook is very positive," Mazzola says.
Mazzola will assist in the transition to Richardson's leadership until June 1. After that he plans to have no plans, and will only consider other business ventures if he gets bored. "I feel pretty much fulfilled," he says.
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