Network World, 01/04/99

JOHN CHAMBERS CEO, CISCO

Every year, Cisco increases its revenue by another $2 billion.

In fiscal year 1995, Cisco was a $2.2 billion company. In 1996, $4.1 billion. In 1997, $6.4 billion. And in fiscal year 1998, Cisco recorded sales of $8.5 billion.

For fiscal year 1999, Cisco is well on its way to a $10 billion-plus year. It recorded first-quarter revenue of $2.6 billion.

As its internetworking brethren continue to show modest to mildly impressive growth year-over-year, Cisco continues to astound the industry. The company seems immune to every industry downturn, and there appears to be no end in sight to Cisco's growth, dominance and spreading influence.

That's a testament to John Chambers and his vision of an Internet economy.

Indeed, a Cisco advertising tag line states: "Cisco . . . bringing the Internet to business." The Internet appears to be returning the favor by bringing business to Cisco.

From the numbers, one can tell that people trust Cisco to take them to the New World of the Internet economy. Chambers is nurturing that trust.

And right now, it's all working out for Cisco. Chambers is to be admired for what he and Cisco have accomplished in data networking. But as Chambers recently pointed out, Cisco has barely scratched the surface of the converged data, voice and video market.

CHAMBERS' CHALLENGE: Chambers has to position Cisco as the No. 1 or 2 supplier in convergence - or conversion, as he calls it. His task is convincing service providers and carriers that Cisco, deity of datacom, should be the supplier of their multimedia infrastructure for the new millennium - and to forget about the Old World guard of Lucent and Nortel.

At the same time, Chambers has to ensure that Cisco does not alienate its traditional enterprise customers by becoming arrogant and overpricing products to maintain traditionally high margins. That could tear down the trust Chambers has worked successfully to build.

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