NWW Cisco Subnet has a post about bloggers writing prolifically about Cisco and cloud services. Setting the Cisco WebEx acquisition aside for the moment, Cisco could and probably will offer some type of software-as-a-service or cloud software service themselves. I would expect the best SaaS opportunities to come in the VoIP market before it shows up anywhere else for Cisco. That said . . .
Cisco's in the cloud-building business themselves, not the cloud services business. At least most of Cisco is -- WebEx being the exception where more SaaS could emerge. But Cisco's core business is building products that will enable virtualized and cloud-based environments, as well as today's network environments. I don't expect Cisco to move away from this core business for a long time.
Cisco has to prove it can offer cloud services and be successful at it first. WebEx? A yawning success to date. Could they buy other SaaS providers and become an even bigger SaaS player? Sure. Money can buy you into a market. That's the strategy behind the WebEx acquisition and Cisco's own SaaS platform. But that hasn't materialized, and though Cisco claims it wants to be a software company, there's a long road to travel between hardware products and really good software products. Cisco's got the moxy to do it but that still doesn't mean it will be easy.
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