Analysts chime in on Cisco refocus

Last week we touched briefly on Cisco's CEO John Chambers' announcement of cuts to expenses to refocus on five key areas: routing, switching and services; video; collaboration; data center virtualization; and architectures. With the CEOs memo, it looks like the analysts have come out of the wood work to chime in on the company's reorganization.

Jim Duffy at Network World imagines what a revamped Cisco would look like in his latest column. He notes that Cisco's consumer business was off 15 percent on the company's second fiscal quarter. The company has expanded into so many markets that many analysts see the company as getting distracted from its core router and networking business. Most analysts surveyed by Duffy think the company should refocus to the enterprise and get out of consumer products that do not seem to mesh with the core business.

Dan O'Shea from Connected Planet notes that many in the industry are seeing the loss of enterprise marketshare, which might force the company to drop its recent gamble into consumer products to regain its focus on its long-time bread and butter. O'Shea posits that spinning off the consumer plays isn't really Cisco's or Chambers' style. The company will more likely double down efforts and push harder into the respective businesses.

For more:
- read the Network World article
- read the Connected Planet article

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