The storming acquisition campaign of Cisco Systems Inc, whose most recent big move took it into Frame Relay and Asynchronous Transfer Mode switches with Stratacom Inc (CI No 3036), has turned the company into a $6.0bn a year networking equipment powerhouse poised to storm past Unisys Corp in terms of annual revenue, and start knocking on the door of Apple Computer Inc. It now dominates the full gamut of networking equipment from modems – via its Telebit acquisition, through hubs and routers to high end switches – and is more than prepared to plug any of those irritating little gaps. Its strategy has taken it so far ahead of its nearest rival, 3Com Corp, that it is now in a position to dictate networking standards. And despite its size, its frenetic acquisition binge means that in the most recent quarter, it still grew a stunning 79%. The one cloud on the horizon? Compaq Computer Corp’s plan to eat Cisco’s lunch by applying its wafer- thin personal computer margins to networking equipment.
