Features
- Cover Type: Hard Cover with 0224 pages
- Published by: Wiley
- Edition: 1st Edition February 18, 2000
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 0471357111
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-0471357117
-
Book Dimensions:
9.1 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
- Weighs: 1.2 pounds
Product Review
Cisco Systems is one of the most valuable companies in the world, yet few know very much about it.
Making the Cisco Connection, by Upside Media CEO and editor David Bunnell, is a clear and comprehensive corporate history that certainly will change that. Beginning with the firm's 1984 founding at Stanford University--when Leonard Bosack and Sandy Lerner first concocted a way for different computer systems to communicate with each other--Bunnell follows the major players and their key actions in order to place this continuing Silicon Valley success story in the proper perspective. There's its meteoric rise at the cusp of the online age, when Bosack and Lerner initially devised the electronic router that is now the backbone of the Internet. There's the power struggle with a venture capitalist that ousted this once-married duo, the marketing savvy that ultimately gave their product an eighty percent market share, the acquisition strategy that has brought both allies and competitors into the fold, the culture that celebrates cooperation and fair play, the ongoing drive to become an even broader communication gateway. These and other moves, which Bunnell fully details, have built a company worth $200 billion today. "In the end," he writes, "who knows?"
--Howard Rothman
Product Description
Cisco Systems is known among the technology elite in Silicon Valley as one of the most successful companies to emerge from the Valley in many years. It has been dubbed computing's next Superpower.
Just as Intel and
Microsoft soared to lofty heights with the rise of the personal computer, Cisco Systems is flying on the spectacular updraft of the Internet. The company, which makes specialized computers that route information through a network--acting as a sort of data traffic cop--has captured 85 percent of the market for routers used as the backbone of the biggest network of them all, the Internet. As a result, over the last five years, the value of Cisco's total outstanding stock has risen over 2,000 percent--twice the increase of
Microsoft Corp. stock in the same period. Beginning as a tale of two college sweethearts at
Stanford University who cofounded the company fifteen years ago, the often-told Cisco legend has all the makings of a great novel--love, money, a villain or two, corporate coups, and the sweet taste of victory. But mostly, the Cisco story is a very unusual tale of corporate success. Despite the struggle of passing through several regimes, Cisco managed to hit all the crucial spots of its business. Cisco consistently bested competitors like 3Com and IBM with insight, innovation, customer focus, and one of the biggest corporate buying sprees in history. Making the Cisco Connection deftly traces the networking giant's path to success, from its founding couple, Sandra Lerner and Leonard Bosack, to current CEO John Chambers. It highlights the company's astounding knack for buying other businesses and making them part of a huge conglomerate; its own highly developed use of technology; and its very tight-knit culture. Featuring the perspective of top Cisco executives and competitors, this book reveals how Cisco's technology, employees, and even its competition have blended to make Cisco possibly the most important company shaping the future of communications. Next to ruthless competitors
Microsoft and Intel, Cisco shines with a kinder, gentler image, emphasizing happy customers and employees. You'll see how Cisco built its impressive culture by cultivating community, boosting morale, whittling down bureaucracy, and saving money to boot. This book also explains how Cisco is positioning itself to enter a new competitive playing field, moving beyond Internet routers in an attempt to build a single, giant, global communications system--based on the Internet--that would make the current telephone system obsolete. Cisco wants to be the company that delivers the infrastructure of this new network, which will combine computer networks with telephones, television, radio, and satellite communications. To do that, it is now challenging global giants such as Lucent Technologies and Fujitsu. Cisco plans to become the backbone of the entire communications industry, making it a corporation of incredible power as the Internet Age blossoms in the new millennium.
Provocative and instructive, Making the Cisco Connection traces the unique history of one of the most profitable and enduring technology companies in business today.
Acclaim for Making the CISCO Connection
"If you want to learn the whole scoop about the first Internet-Age company, and one of the most successful firms of any age, you've come to the right place. Bunnell's treatment of Cisco's rise--and continued rise--is fascinating and full of human detail. It's clear that Cisco is not just a firm with great technology, but also great leaders and managers."--Thomas H. Davenport, Director, Andersen Consulting Institute for Strategic Change; Professor,
Boston University School of Management
"Cisco has emerged as a twenty-first century leader. David Bunnell captures the ongoing story of the Cisco executive team exploiting IT, structuring a unique organization, and creating a dynamic strategy for this breakaway dot com company."--Richard L. Nolan, William Barclay Harding Professor of Business Administration,
Harvard Business School
Reader Reviews I bought this book because Vint Cerf says the Internet will go from 3.5M users today to 3.5B users in 10-15 years, and that means that businesses involved in Internet infrastructure--and especially multi-media multi-lingual narrowcasting--have a growth (or implosion) prospect on the order of 1000X. The book tells a helpful story about CISCO's growth in 12 years, and I for one found it both well-written and fascinating. I am especially impressed by the CISCO rules for successful acquisitions, by the CISCO distinctions between core competencies and outsourced manufacturing, and by the CISCO implementation of its enterprise information system and related web sales and service sites. As for the future, I agree with John Chambers that telephone calls will be free in the future. Arthur Clarke said this twenty years ago. Chambers' vision for a global multi-service (voice and data) offering that easily integrates wireless, fiber-optic, and other forms of transmission is inevitable, but CISCO is not necessarily pre-ordained as the dominant enterprise. Corporate and national information strategies must have four components: connectivity, content, coordination of standards and investments, and communications/computing security. CISCO, as described by the book, has a superficial interest in encryption but does not really understand the urgency of establishing "deep encryption" that is embedded in all data (including data in storage) and unencumbered by the retarded US and European policies seeking to give their spies an easy back door to use. CISCO also appears to be overlooking two major opportunities for future expansion: first, in leading a much broader coordination of standards such as transparent and stable Application Program Interfaces (API) that would permit the remote integration of applications and multi-media data; and second, in exploring all aspects of data classification, indexing, and visualization, both in terms of data access and automated filtering, and in terms of pattern analysis across the network. There are so many over-hyped books on the Internet Revolution that I found this book to be a real pleasure. Whether for entertainment or for business lessons or for insights into the future, it is a solid 5.
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