Comments
Cisco Systems Inc is aiming to become the number one technology and IT company on customer relevance, while the networking giant would be even more aggressive on acquisitions going forward.
“Our aim is to become the number one, and you would know whether we have made it in the next 3-5 years,” Cisco Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John Chambers said in a media interaction during the ‘Cisco Partner Summit 2013’.
The San Jose-headquartered company is banking on its service strategies and partner programmes to evolve as the number one.
“We are a family, and we will make this transition together,” Chambers said, referring to the more than 67,000 active partners Cisco has.
Succession plans
When asked about the succession plans and the likelihood of an Indian succeeding him, Chambers said: “We will make an announcement about six months before the transition.”
On his visit to India in April this year, Chambers did not rule out the possibility of an Indian succeeding him, adding that the company’s Chief Technology and Strategy Officer Padmasree Warrior and Executive Vice-President and Chief Development Officer Pankaj Patel were candidates for the post.
Chambers, 63 years, has plans to step down sometime in the next two-to-four years.
Earlier in his keynote address at Cisco's 17th annual partner summit themed ‘Today, Tomorrow, Together’, Chambers said that there were a number of new transitions Cisco and its partners must traverse to stay on top.
Internet of Everything
On Internet of Everything (IoE) or connecting the unconnected, the next emerging IT trend, he said it is the fourth evolution of Internet. The earlier ones being its introduction, e-commerce and social media, and IoE represents a potential of $14.4 trillion worldwide over the next decade.
The company had made 15 major acquisitions in the last year, mostly in software, mobility and cloud, and would “…put our foot down and be even more aggressive in terms of acquisitions’’.
Cisco would also take advantage of the emerging trends that include big data, analytics and software-defined networking (SDN), even as it would look at acquisitions “even more aggressively” going forward, he added.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.