Cisco's road to software

LANs & Routers This newsletter is sponsored by EMC Align Business with IT Discover the steps required to automate the management of IT environments to effectively respond to changing business demands. Click here to download this whitepaper today! Network World's LANs & Routers Newsletter, 07/31/07 Cisco's road to software By Jeff Caruso Have you heard? Cisco is becoming a software company. But not in the way it seemed last year. That's right - networking's largest hardware company sees its future in software. My colleague Jim Duffy was at last week's Cisco Networkers conference in Anaheim, Calif., and reported on CEO John Chambers' assertion that "we have to become a software company." We all knew that Cisco was headed in that direction, but I don't think we heard Cisco make this admission so boldly. Get Up to Speed on the Latest in WLANs Easily stay on top of the latest developments and issues in WLAN technology, standards, security, telephony, management and more with Network World's latest Executive Guide, "Keeping Up With the Wireless Whirlwind." Click here to download! Last year the company was talking about how it was going to sell its router and switch operating system, IOS, differently. The idea was that the software would be more modular and more independent from the hardware it runs on. Chambers scaled back that idea last week, according to Jim's article. He said the company is not breaking IOS into pieces - instead, Cisco is really just looking at having software sales less tightly coupled with hardware. Not exactly huge news. Chambers focused more on the company's WebEx acquisition, the massive $3.2 billion maneuver that put Cisco at direct odds with the 800-pound gorilla in software, Microsoft. (On a related note, Cisco's marketing of WebEx has been getting on some customers' nerves, so maybe Cisco is trying a little too hard here.) It was pretty self-evident at the time that buying WebEx meant a new direction for Cisco, and of course that's not the end, but rather just the beginning. This is the bigger story, and one that I'm not quite sure most people understand yet. Cisco can say it is becoming a software company all it wants, but what kind of software company will it be? Editor's Note: Starting Aug. 14, this newsletter will be renamed "Network Architecture" to better reflect the focus of the newsletter. We thank you for reading Network World newsletters!   What do you think? Post a comment on this newsletter

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Contact the author: Jeff Caruso is managing editor of online news for Network World. He oversees daily online news posting and newsletter editing, and writes the NetFlash daily news summary, the High-Speed LANs newsletter and the Voices of Networking newsletter. Contact him at jcaruso@nww.com This newsletter is sponsored by EMC Align Business with IT Discover the steps required to automate the management of IT environments to effectively respond to changing business demands. Click here to download this whitepaper today! ARCHIVE Archive of the LANs & Routers Newsletter. BONUS FEATURE IT PRODUCT RESEARCH AT YOUR FINGERTIPS Get detailed information on thousands of products, conduct side-by-side comparisons and read product test and review results with Network World’s IT Buyer’s Guides. Find the best solution faster than ever with over 100 distinct categories across the security, storage, management, wireless, infrastructure and convergence markets. Click here for details. PRINT SUBSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE You've got the technology snapshot of your choice delivered to your inbox each day. Extend your knowledge with a print subscription to the Network World newsweekly, Apply here today. International subscribers, click here. SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES To subscribe or unsubscribe to any Network World newsletter, change your e-mail address or contact us, click here. This message was sent to: networking.world@gmail.com. Please use this address when modifying your subscription. Advertising information: Write to Associate Publisher Online Susan Cardoza Network World, Inc., 118 Turnpike Road, Southborough, MA 01772 Copyright Network World, Inc., 2007