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You mentioned NDS and the acquisitions earlier, and Cisco does seem like it has come back to a pace of M&A that we'd been used to in previous years. A lot of the recent acquisitions seem to address the service provider business, NDS being the biggest example. Are these relevant to your enterprise-focused partners and customers too?
A lot of the acquisitions we've made, especially in the areas of mobility and video, are very relevant across the marketplace. NDS is as important to content providers and media companies as it is to broadband providers and telcos and cable companies. A lot of what everyone is thinking is, how do they unlock digital media content and secure its intellectual property and at the same time present it across multiple access devices. That's what Videoscape does. There is lots of opportunity for partners to advise customers and help them in transitions to access technology, and accessing content across multiple networks.
But I have to tell you, I don't think the acquisitions have been solely in the service provider space. A lot have been about building components, either a platform play like NDS, which augmented Videoscape, or giving us a broader set of optics. We've been pretty balanced, but you're right, we're back in the acquisition market, we addressed our own internal operating deficiencies and achieved the cost reductions, in three quarters, what we said we'd [have in four quarters], and we've told our shareholders and customers that we'll augment our internal innovation through acquisition. That will continue to be a part of our playbook.
Are there particular areas or segments where you might look to acquire?
We will acquire and build our capabilities in alignment with the company's top five priorities: core networking, collaboration, cloud and the data center, video and architectures. That's about all I can say. But NDS fits squarely in No. 4, video, as well as No. 5, architecture. I think that's the best way to leave that.
Those priorities do include security, yes?
Security is absolutely part of our first category: routing, switching, security and mobility, which is the foundational part of the relationship we have with our partners and, of course, with our customers. Chris Young has done a great job helping us continue to reaffirm how to the network plays a really important role in helping our customers [with security.]
NEXT: The Competitive Picture
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