Interviews

In the second instalment of an in-depth interview, John Chambers talks with John Gallant, Scot Finnie, and Editor-in-Chief Eric Knorr about the changing competitive landscape, Cisco’s datacentre strategy and its relationship with HP.

In the third and final part of an in-depth interview with John Gallant, Scot Finnie, and Editor-in-Chief Eric Knorr, Cisco’s John Chambers discusses the proprietary issue and cloud computing opportunities.

By almost any measure, Cisco Systems is the biggest fish in the networking pond. Thanks to more than 130 acquisitions, a brisk pace of internal development and a much-discussed new organizational structure that the company is using to attack a slew of new markets, Cisco's reach extends from the consumer to the enterprise and deep into service provider networks. The company offers everything from personal video cameras to high-end telepresence systems, set-top video boxes to, lately, servers for the data center, in addition to more traditional network gear like routers and switches.

Labor Senator, Kate Lundy, is one of the few Government politicians to go on record against the proposed mandatory ISP filter. ARN spoke with her about voting against it, the effects of Gershon on jobs and CeBIT 2010.

Independent senator for South Australia, Senator Nick Xenophon, has a strong voter base and a vital cross-bench seat. He spoke with ARN about the need for negotiation with the Government over ISP filtering, Telstra’s separation and keeping cloud-based information in Australia.

Senator Scott Ludlam represents the Australian Greens on Communications and technology issues. He spoke with ARN about his potential support for a changed ISP filter and the need to use locals and not increased numbers of migrants to fix the looming IT worker shortage.

While Cisco Systems branches out into consumer electronics, video, mobile data and other areas, one of its biggest areas of focus today is enterprise data centers. The dominant LAN provider thinks the transformation of data centers through virtualization calls for new kinds of connections and a broader role for network technology and intelligence. John McCool oversees this push as senior vice president and general manager of Cisco's Data Center, Switching and Services group. IDG News Service talked with McCool recently about the company's own role and its partnerships with other vendors in this arena.

Despite the economic recession that started in 2008, many IT service providers didn't see the expected boon to business in 2009. Some outsourcers struggled to a degree alongside the rest of the high-tech industry, but IT services experts say they started to see a return to growth toward the end of 2009. That means 2010 could find many outsourcing providers taking advantage of hot technology trends such as cloud computing to sell their services into smaller IT shops. Mike Slavin, partner and practice leader for Global IT Advisory Services at outsourcing industry advisory and consulting firm TPI, shares his take on the coming year and the outsourcing industry with Network World Senior Editor Denise Dubie.

Express Data managing director, Ross Cochrane, is well known and respected for his 13 years at the distributor’s helm. But his heritage in the IT industry was established well before he accepted the post from company co-founder, Jon Shein.

What was your first job?

In just one decade, M2 Telecommunications has grown from a humble communications equipment manufacturing company to a $400 million business. With its purchase of some of Commander’s assets in June, the company has also become a major player in the ICT channel. M2 CEO, Vaughan Bowen, talks to ARN about the NBN, reseller opportunities and why it pays to be niche.

Dimension Data is very proud of its Channel Choice Reseller trophy from this year’s ARN awards and has placed it prominently at its NSW headquarters.

It’s been a big year for Cisco in more ways than one. Across its global operations, the networking powerhouse was, like many of its peers, hit pretty hard by the economic downturn.

Intel’s Phil Cronin is a passionate believer in technology’s influence on society as connectivity pervades all corners of the globe. He speaks to NADIA CAMERON about his industry heritage and experiences, channel evolution and why ICT is so important.