* Cisco chooses a path to software, but where will it lead?
Have you heard? Cisco is becoming a software company. But not in the way it seemed last year.
That’s right – networking’s largest hardware company sees its future in software. My colleague Jim Duffy was at last week’s Cisco Networkers conference in Anaheim, Calif., and reported on CEO John Chambers’ assertion that “we have to become a software company.”
We all knew that Cisco was headed in that direction, but I don’t think we heard Cisco make this admission so boldly.
Last year the company was talking about how it was going to sell its router and switch operating system, IOS, differently. The idea was that the software would be more modular and more independent from the hardware it runs on.
Chambers scaled back that idea last week, according to Jim’s article. He said the company is not breaking IOS into pieces – instead, Cisco is really just looking at having software sales less tightly coupled with hardware. Not exactly huge news.
Chambers focused more on the company’s WebEx acquisition, the massive $3.2 billion maneuver that put Cisco at direct odds with the 800-pound gorilla in software, Microsoft. (On a related note, Cisco’s marketing of WebEx has been getting on some customers’ nerves, so maybe Cisco is trying a little too hard here.)
It was pretty self-evident at the time that buying WebEx meant a new direction for Cisco, and of course that’s not the end, but rather just the beginning. This is the bigger story, and one that I’m not quite sure most people understand yet. Cisco can say it is becoming a software company all it wants, but what kind of software company will it be?
Editor’s Note: Starting Aug. 14, this newsletter will be renamed “Network Architecture” to better reflect the focus of the newsletter. We thank you for reading Network World newsletters!
