Cisco taps ex-Sun chip guru for servers

Not really

"The most interesting aspect of this 18-year saga with Nuovo Systems perhaps is that for whatever reason, Cisco felt compelled to do the research and development of converged switching and servers outside of the company, alienating its own executives and techies. And then, when these devices were productized as Nexus and UCS, Cisco then brought in outsiders to run the SAVT group. And now, an outsider is once again being tapped to run the unit, rather than a long-time Ciscoid."

This is not the first or last time that Cisco has done this. There have been many times that employees "left" for a start-up that Cisco may or may not have helped fund and then later they acquired the company. The reasons are simple, there is more than one-way to accomplish something. Some are better than others. The advantage of a start-up, they are more nimble and the employees work harder as they have a stake in the start-up. I know developers that work 12 to 18 hours a day at a start-up and when the company is acquired, it is 8 to 10 hours a day. The incentive is not there. Back to CIsco, they also get to walk away if the product doesn't interest them. In some cases, employees at the start-up also still go to a Cisco office to work and some have remained on the payroll as well.

Nice spin job by Cisco at damage control

Hi Timothy,

Nice spin job by Cisco at damage control.

How so?

Well, it's obvious that Cisco's top technical engineers, Mario Mazzola, Prem Jain and Luca Cafiero have REFUSED to report directly to Padmasree Warrior and Pankaj Patel as part of Cisco's new engineering management restructuring.

I mean, Mario Mazzola, Prem Jain and Luca Cafiero are now reporting directly to John Chambers.

Poor David Yen has jumped from the frying pan at Juniper into the fire at Cisco if he's got to report to Padmasree Warrior.

Here's why I consider it obvious:

On May 5, Cisco's Engineering team was organized functionally to drive technology innovation, accountability, and alignment across all five of Cisco's priority areas (1. routing, switching, and services; 2. collaboration; 3. data center virtualization and cloud; 4. video; and 5. architectures for business transformation), and Cisco will no longer have a Development Council (CDO).

Pankaj Patel and Padmasree Warrior will now co-lead Cisco's Engineering organization.

Within Cisco Engineering, a dedicated Emerging Business Group, led by Marthin De Beer, will focus on new and emerging businesses including TelePresence, Emerging Technologies, and Consumer. The Cisco Engineering organization under Patel and Warrior will continue to report to Gary Moore.

Kathy Hill will move into a new leadership role, focused on improving Cisco's product operations and profitability by evolving the way Cisco Engineering and Cisco Customer Value Chain Management (CVCM) work together. In this role, Hill will report directly to Gary Moore. Hill's current team will continue to be part of Engineering.

The changes across Cisco Engineering are effective immediately. The week of May 16th, Cisco Engineering will announce its next level of organizational structure.

Resource allocation and profitability targets will move to the Cisco sales and engineering leadership teams, which will have accountability and direct responsibility for the business results.

Over the next 90 days, Cisco will be announcing adjustments to support functions to align to changes across key functions, including operations, marketing, legal, human resource, finance, along with Council and Board focused roles.

Based on Cisco's updated corporate organizational chart:

bradreese.com/images/cisco-org-restructure-banner.jpg

It's obvious from interpreting the Cisco Reorg Chart above that Cisco technical engineering legends Mario Mazzola, Prem Jain and Luca Cafiero have refused to report to Padmasree Warrior and Pankaj Patel.

Padmasree Warrior and Pankaj Patel co-lead Cisco's Engineering, so if engineers Mario Mazzola, Prem Jain and Luca Cafiero were advising Cisco, they'd be advising Padmasree Warrior and Pankaj Patel, but they're not, they're advising John Chambers.

Sincerely,

Brad Reese

re: UCS for free

Hi 'Anonymous' -

Of the almost 4,000 customers (as of fiscal 2nd quarter) that Cisco has amassed in just eighteen months since we started shipping UCS, every single one is a paying customer.

It is true that many companies have taken advantage of Cisco’s demo loan program, which allows customers to trial UCS for free, but all loaned evaluation units must be returned or bought. We have never given away equipment– it is loaned, and then must be returned.

Thanks,

David McCulloch

Director, Corporate Communications

Cisco