Is Cisco grasping for straws with publicly releasing this social media policy, or are they genuinely interested in shaping policy in this environment? Many questions exist about their motivations and the evidence questioning their integrity on the matter is substantive.
Wait WHAT? What the hell is Cisco doing dabbling in Social Media?
Cisco has been heavily criticized over the years, mostly for having “Dell” hardware with “Apple” pricing. Other criticisms involve a lack of genuine ingenuity – operating much like Microsoft, purchasing companies and their technology, rebranding it, and sometimes breaking it in the process… their wireless and security offerings being most notable.
They were late to the security sector and despite their size and talent, still dont quite stack up to the diversity and capability of their competitors. However this specifically is changing, and Im personally impressed with their Borderless Networks. The question is if its too late to introduce this technology, if its really needed by most corporations, and if its too early to introduce it given current economic conditions?
Cisco is moving in to the datacenter market with the release of the Nexus 7000 Datacenter switch, but they are moving in on the turf of heavyweights like IBM and HP. Not surprisingly HP has decided to move in on Ciscos turf as well… an eye for an eye I suppose?
Culturally speaking, the “old timer” employees of the company often speak about how the company has been “corporatized”, how it is not what it once was – its culture is no longer what made itself Cisco.
The value of the CCIE has drastically reduced from what used to be a 110k+ salary range, is now, in an although not scientific but eerily similar study to many other sources, only 10K higher than a CCNP, but costs thousands of dollars more to achieve. Less salary translates to less value. But what can a CCIE do that a seasoned CCNP cannot? Or any other CCNP/DP or combination thereof for that matter?
Reduction in World Wide CCIE’s has allegedly caused Cisco to stop publicly posting their World Wide CCIE stats on their website.
Whats going on Cisco? You seem to be floundering around like a fish out of water. You have to overcome 20+ years of marketing and branding as a routing/switching technology company to be successful outside of it. Thats going to be hard for you ya know? I mean, when you bought Linksys you tried to get in to the consumer market… but your still failing despite buying Flip Video for their camcorders, and youve just released your lackluster, underachieveing and overpriced Valet Router line for home and small business.
So just how is that move in to the consumer market going for you – you cant simply buy your way in to every market you want to be successful in. The only product youve really built yourself from the ground up was Telepresence and that actually turned out really well!
But what can we expect from a company where its very culture has been based on buying things other people make, only to sell that product under its own name?
Side note: And this despite 1/3 of its company are engineers, and another 1/3 are sales. The remaining 1/3 must be trying to figure out what to buy so the other 2/3 can figure out how to sell a product thats not quite, but soon to be broken… ok I *might* be going a little too far with that one. There is no denying the hardware engineering in Cisco’s product line is impressive, especially given the new CRS-3, but back to the point – why so dependent on acquisitions?
But what can we expect from a company whose success in the route/switch market dominance was founded from the first company it purchased in 1993, Crescendo Communications. You see, Crescendo made a product whose name still exists in Cisco’s product line to this day… Catalyst Switches. Half of Ciscos entire core route/switch market is the Catalyst switch line.
Perhaps Cisco should stop grasping for straws and actually do something original instead of trying to stick its hands in to every market it possibly can. It turned out pretty well with Telepresence, not so much with wireless (WLC’s or the WCS) or some of their security offerings (MARS).
Hey Cisco, you make hardware! Take to your own advice and stick to building your strengths. Youll never do terribly well in any other market and you know what? Thats okay!
Anyway, here is Cisco’s Social Media Policy: