[Cryptography] "completely unexpected" drop in Cisco's foreign revenues

[Jerry Leichter]

On Dec 1, 2014, at 8:46 AM, ianG <iang at iang.org> wrote:
> Cisco’s disastrous quarter shows how NSA spying could freeze US companies out of a trillion-dollar opportunity
> Bellwether Cisco indicates American tech companies are no longer welcome in Russia and other emerging markets.(AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
Before you take this at face value - think back a couple of years, when every CEO was out there citing "the disruptive effects of El Niño on markets" as an excuse for the poor performance of their firms.

Cisco has many other challenges.  Their basic technological approach - specialized hardware for routing, using proprietary software and protocols, which the market took to justify high margins - is under serious attack by SDN. Their investments outside of their core strengths haven't panned out - just what made them think buying Flip cameras was a good idea?  Their high end teleconferencing stuff seems to have a limited market, as there are a number of "good enough" competitors out there already.

How much the NSA revelations affected them is very difficult to say.  Frankly, I doubt they really know themselves.  But they sure make for a good excuse....

                                                        -- Jerry