Open Network Featured Article

Companies and their networks are undergoing a whole lot of change, and the vendors that have historically been the arms dealers for network engineers have to go with the flow. Cisco (News - Alert) Systems is seen as the vendor with the most to lose, considering it’s long been the leader in enterprise networking.

The good news is that Cisco this month reported what it is calling a solid quarter, with third quarter revenue of $12 billion, reflecting 1 to 4 percent growth year over year for the quarter.

The bad news is that Cisco recently slipped to the No. 2 position as a key infrastructure supplier to enterprises, according to a JPMorgan Chase & Co. CIO survey. No. 1, the survey suggests, is now Amazon Web Services (News - Alert).

This, of course, reflects the rise of cloud services, which enable businesses to more easily scale, always keep up to date with the latest software releases, offload some of the IT chores from their own staff members, and avoid upfront equipment costs and maintenance requirements.

While Amazon pioneered the enterprise cloud services space, it is now joined by a wide array of others, including Cisco and many of its equipment peers, who are now expanding to offer cloud services.

In announcing Cisco’s third quarter financials the company’s new CEO Chuck Robbins commented: "I'm pleased with our performance today as well as the progress we're making in transitioning our business to a more software and subscription focus, which we'll continue to apply across our entire portfolio."

Cisco acquired several companies during the quarter in its move to increase its possibilities related to the cloud. That included the purchase of Acano, which offers collaboration and video solutions that can work in the cloud or on premises, CliQr, which sells an application-defined cloud orchestration platform; Jasper Technologies, which offers a cloud-based Internet of Things service platform; Leaba, a fabless semiconductor company; and Synata, which provides search capabilities for cloud-based collaboration applications.