Cisco UnAuthorized

Author - Jeffrey S. Young ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Hardcover Book item from Prima Lifestyles was reviewed on 25-Oct-2008.

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1) Hardcover Book Cisco UnAuthorized by Prima Lifestyles. I don´t know if Jeffrey Young understands the *business* of networking, but he sure doesn´t have much of a grasp on the technical details. That´d be okay, except that he seems to feel compelled to try to explain the technical details.

The cherry on top of the sundae of misinformation: "Moving data around in a network or through the Internet [...] is inherently better with one standard. In networking today, that standard is IP, or Internet Protocol based on Cisco´s software: IOS." IOS is just one implementation of IP, and certainly wasn´t the first. If Young doesn´t understand that the Internet doesn´t run wholely on Cisco software, it seems to me that the rest of the book is going to be pretty suspect.

This is hardly the only poorly-stated, unresearched remark that Young throws out. His explanation of the Internet was perhaps the worst I´ve ever read. I´m giving the book two stars instead of one because I enjoyed some of the insight into John Chambers and the rest of Cisco. Alas, given Young´s technical gaffes, I really don´t know if I can trust these parts of the book, either.¤

2) Hardcover Book Cisco UnAuthorized by Prima Lifestyles. I spotted this book at a retailer and bought it with tremendous anticipation, both because it is a genre I enjoy (business "biography") and because it is about one of the most successful companies started in the last decade of the 20th Century. Regrettably, I was profoundly disappointed when I read it. Admittedly, I was expecting more of a historical accounting than a technology vision paper, so perhaps my disappointment was my own fault. Nevertheless, the book struck me as unabashedly written for marketability and to cash in on readers still interested in how companies benefited during the New Economy bubble rather than for information or entertainment value.

I had no beef with the fact that in the New Economy timeline, a book copyrighted in 2001 was probably out of date in 2002. What did surprise me was that I had to wait until page 165 to start learning about the actual history of Cisco, a problem in a book that is only 296 pages without the acknowledgements and the index. Also surprising was the storyboard built on anecdotal observations rather than detailed interviewing, the retelling of lightly edited stories, and solid research. Strangely, there are occaisional gems included on companies and individuals NOT associated with Cisco, but it obviously could´t save the book.

A better execution of this type of book was writted by T. Boyle on GE and Jack Welch (At Any Cost). For reporting on the history of technology companies, one obviously has to mention T. Kidder´s Soul of a New Machine on Digital´s rise in the market. And finally, for a timeless approach to entertaining company biographies, I would be remiss not to mention C. Hilton´s Be My Guest.

Used copies of this book are available for less than it will cost to ship it to you. My advice, take a pass on this one.¤

3) Hardcover Book Cisco UnAuthorized by Prima Lifestyles. This book takes a look at the huge corporate monolith (also called "the Borg" by a few friends of mine who work there) called Cisco Systems. It starts off by giving a short story of the company´s current status. And since this book is almost a year old now, of course it´s a bit dated. This book came out before the economy took a nosedive, taking Cisco along with every other company. I´d be intrigued to see what the author would have to say about Cisco now. Even so, Cisco appears to have weathered the storm well.

It takes a long hard look at John Chambers, the "country boy" turned Cisco CEO and his quest to do "whatever it takes" to keep Cisco on top. Pointing out along the way that Cisco seems to have stayed on top due to the competitors´ failures as well as acquiring at breakneck speed any "start-up" with the latest and greatest technologies that Cisco can capitalize on.

The book also details the stories of the competititors, like Lucent, Nortel, Juniper, and Redback and how they may yet cut into some of Cisco´s sales. While I found this book to be very informative not only about Cisco and its history, as well as some background on its competitors, I got the sense the author is silently waiting to see Cisco fall. Whether or not this actually happens of course is another story, one that may take years to unfold.¤

4) Hardcover Book Cisco UnAuthorized by Prima Lifestyles. Any discussion of Cisco Systems either now or in weeks to come may soon prove inadequate, if not flat-out wrong. When Young wrote this book, neither he nor anyone else at that time (including decision-makers at Cisco) could have predicted what has since happened and not-happened in the company and in its industry. It was once said of Soviet historians that they could predict the past with absolute accuracy. The comments which follow are based on the book as published, not as it would have been written with the wisdom of hindsight.

Young organizes his material within four Parts: The Cisco Myth, Competition at the Speed of Light, Fault Lines, and Into the Void. He explains that his book "is particularly;y concerned with the period from the beginnings of the dot-com frenzy in early 1999 to the industry´s winter of discontent at the end of 2000. It is a portrait of an extraordinary company, its charismatic leader, and the world it is creating, discovering, exploiting, and fashioning. But there is also a dark side to the story, a hollowness at the core of this great company that is symptomatic of much of the Internet generation, and an arrogance that afflicts Cisco particularly." Young makes it very clear that what he presents is his version of the Cisco "story" as of when the book went to press.

John Chambers, CEO of Cisco, is one of the focal points. Young quotes Chambers extensively and, I think, does so with circumspection. For example, "Make no mistake about it", Chambers asserts, "the Internet is nothing short of the second Industrial Revolution. Industry is going to change. You have to make the change or you won´t survive. They key is how to do it without your existing business. And one of the toughest challenges is figuring out the new channels. Timing is the key." This has been one of the key verses of Chambers´ mantra for almost a decade.

Throughout the book, Young offers his own analysis of the nature and extent of Cisco´s response to "the toughest challenges" under Chambers´ leadership. He concludes, "Maybe Coyote Valley is where the future is going to be created. Maybe it will not. But it will happen on Internet time supplied by Cisco. John T. Chambers and Cisco, have created the first great empire of the Information Age by selling pickaxes, Levis, and quicksilver to the early miners. Now they´re going to sell them to everyone else too. In the process [if they succeed], they´ll fulfill the vision printed on the plastic ID card that each of its wears....´We are going to change the way people work, live, play, and learn.´" Chambers remains wholly committed to that vision. Obviously, the full story has yet to be told but in his book, Young has made a strong effort to understand and then explain both Chambers and his company. He shares several rather strong opinions of his own about Cisco´s acquisitions (70 companies in five years), its outsourcing model, and its competitors such as Lucent, Nortel, Juniper, and Redback.

His readers must now ask questions such as these: Can and will Cisco regain ground lost during the past 6-8 months? What are the most serious barriers to doing that? Young asserts that Cisco has relied on a "dangerous business model." To what extent (if any) has that business model been modified in recent months? Even if modified, can and will it prove equal to new as well as on-going challenges which lie ahead?

My own opinion is that Cisco will continue to experience problems but that it will regain much of its momentum and cap value, if not to the extent it once possessed. I share Young´s concern about what he calls "one glaring hole: succession" but based on what I have recently observed, Cisco has a rather deep executive bench and Chambers, meanwhile, seems much more inclined to develop that talent than he once was. So, what we have with this book is one man´s analysis of a CEO and his company, based on extensive research. Will every reader agree with Young´s opinions? Of course not. If there is a revised edition, Young may well modify (if not repudiate) several of his own conclusions. For those who read this book, he increases their understanding of a great company within a major industry. He raises some very important questions about both and then offers his own answers. Each reader must then take it from there. Fair enough.¤

5) Hardcover Book Cisco UnAuthorized by Prima Lifestyles. Young is best at describing the personalities and backgrounds of Chambers, and the CEOs of Nortel and Lucent, Roth and McGinn, respectively. He´s also adept at summarizing the key messages and sales pitches that Cisco, Nortel and Lucent make. He is weakest at understanding the technology, and competitive dynamics. Contrary to Young´s assertions, Cisco has been able to price it´s products at a premium, because Cisco´s products are technically superior to the competition in most areas. Sure, other factors help (e.g., great service and support). But customers are smart enough to know the truth about product and technology leadership to overpay when it isn´t necessary. And finally, the book is also poorly edited (e.g., the book mentions "Corvus" as an optical player instead of "Corvis"). Basically, this book is like a long, long, magazine article with some good quotes, and amusing anecdotes, but in the end, has relatively little substance.¤

6) Hardcover Book Cisco UnAuthorized by Prima Lifestyles. Over the course of one treacherous year, Cisco Systems, the company that wired the Information Age, has seen its stock price crumble and its market domination challenged. For the first time ever, there are whispers about this Silicon Valley titan. Does Cisco still have what it takes to continue its mastery over the New Economy, a world in which lightening-fast shifts in technology and market demand can destroy, in the blink of an eye, billion-dollar corporations and garage start-ups alike?




"A great book about a great company by a great writer."
— Guy Kawasaki CEO, Garage.com and author of Rules for Revolutionaries



In this engrossing book, bestselling author and high-tech chronicler Jeffrey S. Young goes deep inside the new information technology that is radically changing the face of business and, at the same time, profoundly touching each of our lives. Standing alone in the eye of this electronic maelstrom is Cisco Systems, a company whose personality and drive mirror that of its tenacious CEO, John Chambers.

Through guts and guile, Chambers has built an extraordinarily aggressive company that owns the infrastructure through which more than 75 percent of the world´s data travels. This remarkable achievement, however, is now under withering assault from all sides. Today, Cisco´s domination of the $100 billion net-working market is threatened not only by such multinational corporations as Nortel and Lucent but also by a new breed of start-ups that are sprouting like weeds. Young, savvy com-panies such as Juniper, Redback, ONI, Sycamore, and others are moving with speed and agility to beat the giants at their own game. As John Chambers has said on many occasions, the guys he fears most are the ones who can start out with a blank sheet of paper. Today, there are lots of guys with blank sheets of paper.

s is a story of packets and photons, routers, fiber optics, and waves in an era of limitless wealth and opportunity. Yet it is also a human tale, with a handful of business warriors trying to take control of the future in the midst of technology wars and brutal competition. The stakes are nothing less than control of the future of information.

luding exclusive interviews with key high-tech executives, Cisco Unauthorized is an unforgettable portrait of a remarkable company, a brilliant CEO, and a defining moment in the Information Age.¤

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 22-Nov-2008, 0761527753086874527751, 530-8

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