Network World, 01/04/99

JUDY ESTRIN SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, CTO
CHARLIE GIANCARLO SENIOR VICE
PRESIDENT, GLOBAL ALLIANCES, CISCO

Nobody scoops up companies at a faster clip than Cisco. Over the past five years, Cisco has spent more than $7 billion acquiring companies.

How does Cisco determine which companies to purchase and which simply to forge partnerships with?

That's the job of Judy Estrin and Charlie Giancarlo. Together, they are charged with executing on CEO Chambers' vision to "Empower the Internet Generation." They have a huge hand in reshaping the network industry through the deals they strike and the partnerships they form. Some people even launch start-ups - though they wouldn't admit it - with the goal of being acquired by Cisco.

Estrin's own start-up - IP video software developer Precept Software - was one of those companies Cisco acquired. Before Precept, Estrin started two other companies - Bridge Communications and Network Computing Devices. (3Com acquired Bridge in 1987.)

As Cisco attempts to set the industry pace in IP convergence and Internet telephony, Estrin and Giancarlo will select the blue ribbon innovators that have the technology the company needs to push ahead.

If picking the technology winners isn't enough, Estrin also figures out how Cisco invests its massive research and development budget. And Giancarlo, who hails from Network Equipment Technologies, ATM switch pioneer Adaptive Corp. and Ethernet switch start-up Kalpana, which Cisco acquired, hammers out the contractual terms and conditions for projects such as Sprint's ION network.

ESTRIN'S and GIANCARLO'S CHALLENGE: Estrin and Giancarlo must pick the strongest, fittest and most capable soldiers to do battle against the overlords of voice, Lucent and Nortel - and they have to do that before Lucent and Nortel do.

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