Page 5 of 5
Three-to-five years down the line, look at the next big transition. If we go back that time you were talking about video, now everyone's got a video plaay. So what's three-to-five years down the line now?
Three-to-five years down the line is going to have a lot to do with organizational transformations and the effectiveness that goes with it. That will drive a decade of productivity, that's really big. It'll save some of these systems close to bankruptcy in healthcare and it will transform education, internally to companies as well as education in K-12 systems and higher education -- just watch what's going on at Duke, for example, it's transformational.
You will also see, if we're right, the organization structure [change]. Suddenly, and I would argue it's going to be the network IT will be so deeply embedded in the business process that you won't talk about business process and IT enabling it. They will be one and the same. That in people's minds might have been a stretch three to five years ago, but when I talk to the top five percent of CEOs in the world, they not only get it, but when you sit and listen to them, you can't tell what's IT and what is their business. It's starting to occur, and plays extremely well for Cisco and our partners.
Another game-changing acquisition at the level of Tandberg; will we see one this year?
You will see constant, if we do our job right, game-changing acquisitions. We don't do them just to acquire. We do them when the market is right, when the price is right, and we try to catch market inflection points. So we try not to look in our rearview mirror, and we never set our strategy off of our competition.
If you're setting your strategy off your competition, by definition, you are two to three years behind. That's how I know we're doing well, when our competitors start to say 'end-to-end.' When our competitors, who haven't been able to acquire, start to acquire. When our competitors who haven't believed in a vertical stack begin to do a vertical stack. So, to me, it's about execution. I do not minimize the hurdles in front of us or our partners, but the opportunity is really exciting. Definitely some bumps in the road for all of us. The nice thing is, we partner for life. I'm not perfect, as my wife reminds me every day I'm not [laughter], but I'm pretty darn good and well worth keeping!
John, any holes in the portfolio?
Oh, constantly. The nice thing is we're right on this architectural issue and there are going to be constant holes you've got to firm up. Security is our number one emphasis across the whole company, mainly because it's our customers' No. 1 issue. There is no such thing as a secure data center or network. That is huge for the future and huge for the industry, and probably has to be solved in the network.
So that's an area we have to do dramatically better, you can't unless you're in the data center, unless you're in enterprise, unless you're in service provider, unless you're in wireless, unles you go all the way to consumer, any device to any content. I don't know how to resolve this the issue without this. On the positive side, it's great it's the focus. On the negative side, you've got to say, what took you so long. 'If you're the only architectural play, which you probably will be, why don't you move faster?' And that's probably fair criticism.
Security in and of itself can cause a huge upgrade cycle. It's an architectural play if we're right on that.
<< Previous
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
5
