SANs/NAS

Cisco Shows Signs of Weakness in Q1

Cisco is no longer just competing with the Junipers and Brocades of the world, as it attempts to takes on traditional data center IT vendors like IBM and HP. And fending off competition on multiple fronts is no easy task. While the company has shipped more than 2,500 Unified Computing Systems (UCS), it is taking its lumps in other sectors. This article from Datamation details Cisco’s Q1 earnings results.

“Networking giant Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) reported its first quarter fiscal 2011 earning this week, showing weakness in a few sectors and providing a very conservative outlook for the next quarter.

“There were a number of key bright spots for Cisco during the quarter, with growth in its UCS server business and the first shipments of its high-end CRS-3 core routing platform.

“Cisco reported first quarter fiscal 2011 revenues of $10.75 billion, an increase of 19 percent on a year-over- year basis. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were projecting revenues of $10.73 billion for the quarter. Cisco's net income for the quarter was reported at $1.9 billion, an increase of 8 percent. Looking forward, Cisco provided revenue guidance for the second quarter of its fiscal 2011 for year-over-year growth of between three and five percent.

“‘First of all, our view on this guidance is we’re disappointed,’ Cisco CEO John Chambers said during the company's analyst call. ‘This is something that if we were to look back just a quarter ago, we expected it to be in the mid-teens or higher and that’s what I think our growth rates should be. If you look, we’ve got a couple of air pockets that we hit. You adjust to those air pockets as you go through in terms of the direction.’