Cisco

Cisco Systems' CEO John Chambers said the networking equipment maker is poised to see meteoric growth over the next several years as the Internet enters a new phase.

Like a fortune teller gazing into a crystal ball, Chambers told investors and analysts on the company's fourth quarter earnings conference call for fiscal 2007 that he believes the Internet is about to hit its next wave, which he expects will catapult Cisco's growth to levels it hasn't seen since the early Internet boom of the 1990s.

"The second phase of the Internet will enable collaboration that will … Read more

Cisco Systems said it will pay $150 million for a small stake in a virtualization software company called VMware, which operates as a unit of storage giant EMC.

Cisco's stake in the company will be about 1.6 percent. VMware is the leader in what is turning out to be a hot market. The division makes software that allows a computer or server to function as if it were several. The software emulates features of a computer, which makes it easier to run multiple operating systems and applications on a single machine. Companies benefit because the software allows them … Read more

So much for the theory iPhone designers were North Carolina fans. Cisco and Duke University are now absolving the iPhone of any blame for wireless network outages at the school, as was earlier alleged, but they aren't saying exactly what caused the problems.

In a news report earlier this week, a Duke official directly implicated the iPhone for causing network issues that knocked out parts of Duke's wireless network. But Duke spokeswoman Tracy Futhey, in a statement Friday on the school's Web site, said: "The reality is that a particular set of conditions made the Duke … Read more

Were the iPhone designers North Carolina fans?

Network World is reporting that Duke University's Wi-Fi network is suffering from what appear to be rogue iPhones. Duke's Kevin Miller told Network World that the iPhone's Wi-Fi chips are flooding the university's Cisco access points with requests for MAC (Media Access Control) addresses. This is apparently knocking out dozens of access points as the 150 iPhones on campus wander around between different hotspots.

It seems a bit weird to me. No other reports of trouble with iPhones and Wi-Fi networks have surfaced, though of course it's very … Read more

Editor's note: This story was updated at 2:51 p.m. PDT to clear up confusion between DomainKeys, a standard already in use, and DomainKeys Identified Mail, the up-and-coming technique to which some are now migrating.

WASHINGTON--A new antispam technology that recently got a preliminary nod from an international standards body holds promise, but an engineer who helped develop the technique says it's not a surefire way to evade e-mails from criminals.

The technique called DomainKeys Identified Mail, or DKIM for short, relies on a quietly inserted digital signature on the sender's end, which is designed to … Read more

CHICAGO--Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers disagrees with BusinessWeek's recent article that claims the telecommunications industry has risen from the dead.

In Chambers' view, the telecom market is simply entering the second phase of its life cycle--a cycle he claims to have envisioned some 15 years ago when Cisco pledged to change the way people work, live and play.

"BusinessWeek got it wrong," he said. "Telecom is not back from the dead. It's merely in phase 2 of its development. In this second phase, collaboration or sharing with a large group will change the service model … Read more

IBM and Cisco Systems are sitting down at the table again. And this time the table is bigger.

The two technology behemoths are expanding their near-decade-old alliance, enhancing the focus on telecom carriers and their customers. As part of the expanded alliance, announced Thursday, the duo will offer a centralized service to identify, manage and reroute network traffic when trouble arises.

Cisco will combine its Network Management Platform with IBM's Tivoli Software for Service Assurance and Fault Management. That, in essence, strives to help carriers manage IP-based services and reduce implementation and maintenance costs.

Next month, Cisco plans to … Read more

At last week's Interop shindig, Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers' annual walk-about keynote presentation focused on "Web 2.0 creep" and its impact on the network. According to Chambers, enterprises will adopt Web 2.0 tools like blogs, wikis and Web video and bring today's networks to their knees in the process.

While I believe that the enterprise Web 2.0 trend is in its early genesis phase, I tend to agree with Mr. Chambers' hypothesis.

Enterprise networks have grown organically over the past 15 years--a switch here, more port capacity over there, add a wireless … Read more

LAS VEGAS--I'm here at the Interop conference, networking-geek heaven. Yesterday was Network Access Control day, so I'd be remiss if I didn't wish everyone a belated happy NAC day to start.

Yesterday's big networking news didn't break here. It came from Redmond, Wash.: Microsoft announced two partnership announcements.

First, Microsoft announced that its version of NAC called Network Access Protection would interoperate with the Trusted Network Connect (TNC) framework from the Trusted Computing Group, or TCG. Not content with a single new friend, Microsoft made a similar announcement with Juniper Networks, declaring NAP interoperability with … Read more