CSCO - Cisco Systems, Inc.
41.33 +0.13 (0.32%)
After hours: 6:38PM EDT
| Previous close | 41.74 |
| Open | 42.09 |
| Bid | 41.30 x 900 |
| Ask | 41.17 x 900 |
| Day's range | 40.85 - 42.20 |
| 52-week range | 32.40 - 58.26 |
| Volume | 26,646,991 |
| Avg. volume | 31,691,557 |
| Market cap | 174.724B |
| Beta (5Y monthly) | 1.01 |
| PE ratio (TTM) | 16.07 |
| EPS (TTM) | 2.56 |
| Earnings date | 12 May 2020 |
| Forward dividend & yield | 1.44 (3.45%) |
| Ex-dividend date | 01 Apr 2020 |
| 1y target est | 47.36 |
- Zacks
Cisco Systems (CSCO) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: What You Should Know
Cisco Systems (CSCO) closed the most recent trading day at $41.20, moving -1.29% from the previous trading session.
- Bloomberg
Cisco CEO Tells Staff Jobs Are Safe, Urges Others to Avoid Cuts
(Bloomberg) -- Cisco Systems Inc. Chief Executive Officer Chuck Robbins said he’s told staff not to worry about losing their jobs and urged other companies to follow his example when possible.“We’re actively involved in the community trying to help people who’ve been impacted by this, why would we contribute to the problem?” Robbins said in an interview. “There are companies whose revenue has gone to zero who have no option. To me it’s just silly for those of us who have the financial wherewithal to absorb this, for us to add to the problem. It’s illogical.” Cisco, based in San Jose, California, has about 75,000 employees.Robbins said Cisco is focused on the near-term response to Covid-19 and has little visibility into how the economic downturn will affect its business farther out in the future. For now, the largest maker of hardware that handles internet traffic is rushing to meet demand for its Webex conferencing business and help customers expand their online capabilities, he said.Like other hardware makers, Cisco has seen increased demand from corporate customers that are experiencing a surge of online activity or trying to support more employees working from home. It’s too early to say whether that’s a short-term bump or a more permanent shift in the way companies do business, he said.IT Support Staff Go From Ignored to Indispensable: Fully Charged“Customers got to the point they’re at now by using everything they could to get up and running,” he said. “There’s a thesis that says some of our customers are going to go through an upgrade cycle. But we don’t know.”Some industries such as health care, higher education and financial services may be among those that build up their infrastructure to adjust to these changes more permanently, he said.Robbins said he’s spending a lot of his time on efforts by Cisco employees to help local communities. The company has implemented programs such as removing conferencing hardware from offices that are empty and sending it to hospitals. They’re using such gear to implement new procedures like remote patient check-ins, he said.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Zacks
Cisco (CSCO) to Buy Fluidmesh Networks to Boost IoT Portfolio
Cisco's (CSCO) acquisition of Fluidmesh Networks is expected to strengthen its industrial IoT offerings, which bode well for its long-term prospects.
- Zacks
Cisco (CSCO) Webex Sees User Growth Amid Coronavirus Crisis
Cisco's (CSCO) Webex witnesses surge in users due to enhanced features and capabilities amid global pandemic.
- Bloomberg
Trump Risks U.S. Jobs While Saving Apple’s at Austin Factory
(Bloomberg) -- When Donald Trump toured an Austin, Texas, factory in November alongside Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook, the president promoted the event as a celebration of U.S. manufacturing and the return of good-paying jobs to the country.The Apple CEO had successfully made his case to the administration that some components for his company’s products should be excluded from Trump’s China tariffs in exchange for keeping production in the U.S.“Today, I opened a major Apple Manufacturing plant in Texas that will bring high-paying jobs back to America,” Trump tweeted on Nov. 20.But the facility Trump visited is owned and operated by contract manufacturer Flex Ltd. and has been open for 30 years. For decades, it has been producing various devices for many companies including Cisco Systems Inc. Apple has been at the Flex plant since 2013.Computer Parts“He doesn’t have to worry about tariffs,” Trump said of Cook during the Nov. 20 factory tour. “Because when you build in the United States, you don’t have to worry about tariffs.”Two months earlier, the iPhone maker was exempted from tariffs levied on components it imports from China that are used in the Mac Pro desktop put together at the Flex plant. The removal of a 25% surcharge on items like power supplies and printed circuit boards that house the main components of the computer lowered Apple’s costs and, according to Cook, was the reason why the Cupertino, California-based company continued its manufacturing at the Austin factory.But other companies, like San Jose, California-based Cisco, didn’t receive the same treatment. Now jobs related to the manufacture of its products are at risk.In July 2019, Cisco asked the government to exempt the company’s power supplies for U.S.-made servers and switches from the same 25% tariff. Cisco said neither this China-made product nor a comparable one is available in the U.S. or from sources in third countries.Tariff ExemptionsCisco, like many other U.S. companies, was making the same plea to the Trump administration as Apple had: The exemptions were necessary to save good-paying American jobs.After months of being stuck in the process, Cisco was told March 5 that its application for the tariff exemption was denied.“After careful consideration, your request was denied because the request concerns a product strategically important or related to ‘Made in China 2025’ or other Chinese industrial programs,” Joseph Barloon, general counsel for the Office of U.S. Trade Representative, wrote in the denial notice.The applications for an exemption from Apple and Cisco were strikingly similar, particularly when it came to the question of whether their products helped China expand its industrial might.Power Supply“The subject power supplies are not strategically important or related to ‘Made in China 2025’ or any other Chinese industrial policy,” Cisco wrote. “The manufacture of these products in China is unrelated to China’s efforts to develop indigenous, advanced Information and Communications Technology products.”Apple used nearly identical language, saying: “This product is a component of a consumer electronic device. It is not strategically important or related to ‘Made in China 2025’ or other Chinese industrial programs.”Indeed, the power-supply boxes imported from China don’t require cutting-edge technological know-how. They are mostly made up of large spools of copper wire, capacitors and other basic wiring. They haven’t been made in the U.S. for years and don’t require highly paid skilled labor.Apple’s application to get a tariff exclusion was approved in September 2019.Tariff ReliefA USTR spokesman didn’t respond to a request for comment when asked why Apple’s power supply unit doesn’t constitute a product that’s strategically important to China’s industrial programs if an almost identical one from Cisco does.Cisco representatives specifically told USTR and others in the administration while the applications were pending that jobs were at risk, according to sources familiar with the process who asked not to be identified discussing private talks.In a statement after the decision, Cisco said the exemptions it sought “would support the competitiveness of this domestic manufacturing.”The company said it would continue to work with the trade representative’s office for tariff relief on other items, including “for communications equipment that we believe are vital to support the medical response to the coronavirus.”USTR doesn’t make public the reasons why it approves a company’s exemption requests. The business community writ large has complained about the lack of visibility into why certain companies get what appears to be preferential treatment over others.San Jose, California-based Flex, which works for both companies, said in a statement that “securing waivers for tax exemptions is an individualized process based on each customer situation” and declined to identify other customers that use the Austin plant. “Flex’s global footprint provides our customers with options for manufacturing locations, however, we also work closely to help our customers secure tariff exemptions based on their needs.”A group of Texas lawmakers in a letter to trade chief Robert Lighthizer last year underscored that jobs are on the line in Cisco’s case. “Cisco’s operations in Texas directly support more than 1,150 jobs in our state and indirectly support thousands of related jobs in logistics, warehousing, distribution and transportation,” the lawmakers said in their Sept. 13 letter.The decision by the trade office means it’s now a lot cheaper for Cisco to put together its servers, switches and routers in Flex plants in Mexico and export the finished device tariff-free to the U.S. The company declined to say what actions it would take regarding jobs or manufacturing in light of the denial of tariff exemption.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Investing.com
Cisco Stock Rises 4%
Investing.com - Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) Stock rose by 4.02% to trade at $40.65 by 11:28 (15:28 GMT) on Monday on the NASDAQ exchange.
- Zacks
Cisco Systems (CSCO) Dips More Than Broader Markets: What You Should Know
In the latest trading session, Cisco Systems (CSCO) closed at $39.06, marking a -1.86% move from the previous day.
- Zacks
ETFs to Gain on Cloud Computing Growth Amid Coronavirus Crisis
Cloud computing comes to the rescue as countries practice social distancing, making people work remotely to contain the coronavirus outbreak.
- Reuters
Cisco's Webex draws record 324 million users in March
Webex and rival meeting platforms from Zoom and Microsoft Corp's Teams are being used worldwide to host everything from virtual classrooms and business meetings to church services, as people stay at home to restrict the spread of the pandemic. It was, however, not clear if the number was comparable with Cisco's due to the different ways the companies calculate meeting attendees.
- Yahoo Finance
'We are the last service to be turned off' amid the coronavirus: RingCentral CEO
RingCentral founder Vlad Shmunis details a big uptick in business as people work from home during the coronavirus in an interview with Yahoo Finance.
- IPO-Edge.com
IPO Edge’s Jannarone: Beware Getting Burned by Zoom Stock Frenzy – TD Ameritrade TV
The coronavirus crisis has caused panicked investors to look everywhere for shelter, including extremely expensive stocks such as Zoom Video Communications, Inc. (ticker: ZM). But while there has been a surge in usage of the service, the stock could plummet as investors seek out companies with steady cash flow in months ahead. That's according to […]
- Zacks
Palo Alto to Fortify Security Offerings With CloudGenix Buyout
Palo Alto (PANW) to acquire CloudGenix for approximately $420 million in an effort to expand its cloud security offerings.
- Bloomberg
Slack and Zoom Seize the Day, But Will They Stick?
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The coronavirus is changing the way we work. As more governments implement stricter shelter-in-place orders, corporations and their employees are scrambling to figure out how to conduct business operations in a work-at-home world. First, new hardware is required. Sales of monitors, webcams and laptops are soaring as people build out their home offices. But that’s the easy part.The bigger issue is how to enable similar levels of productivity without the many brief conversations and in-person meetings during a typical day at the office. To accomplish this, companies are increasingly turning to a handful upstarts in the aptly named workforce collaboration software category. These are the tools, initially designed for use in an office, which the world has now discovered work so well when trying to stay connected remotely, from video conferencing to electronic messaging platforms. And as they gain traction in the home workspace, it seems more and more likely they’ll stick once we’re all back in the office again, accelerating a trend toward greater usage that was happening anyway.Three tools that particularly stand out come from Zoom Video Communications Inc., Slack Technologies, Inc. and Smartsheet Inc. What these companies have in common is they are upstarts, their products are arguably best-in-class for what they do and they’ve all seen their shares jump amid the widening coronavirus crisis.As recently as a couple months ago, the companies faced challenges in trying to raise awareness for their offerings. Microsoft Corp. and Cisco Systems, Inc. have much larger marketing budgets and deeper relationships with Fortune 500 tech buyers. Well that is less of a problem now. The need to just get work done has become a showcase opportunity for the best-of-breed software vendors to break through the noise and put some distance between their products and the tech-industry goliaths’ less-capable offerings.Zoom is further along in the brand-awareness process. By now, everyone knows how the company is thriving as the video-conferencing pure play of choice. Earlier this month, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan said on a call, “Given this coronavirus, I think that overnight almost every business really understands they needed a tool like this. This will dramatically change the landscape.” Last week, Bernstein’s survey of 516 working adults revealed Zoom’s momentum continues to rise. Based on an analysis of responses, the data implied Zoom’s boost in usage among knowledge workers was more than double, versus any other vendor since the coronavirus crisis began. Zoom’s success will have ramifications for when the crisis ends too. As businesses get acclimated to using inexpensive, high-quality videoconferencing, executives may realize the prior level of travel spend simply isn’t worth the cost.Smartsheet is also flourishing in the moment. The company makes software that automates business processes and workflows without requiring technical programming skills. For example, it can replace the manual data entry into Excel spreadsheets by using automatically updated web-enabled forms, improving accuracy and productivity. Earlier this month, the company posted 58% quarterly billings growth for its fiscal fourth quarter and said it wasn’t seeing a negative impact from the coronavirus.And then there’s Slack. The messaging platform has seen a surge in demand for its service, and as a hard-core user myself, I can vouch for how Slack has improved communications with colleagues inside and outside the office. Compared to email, it enables a faster form of iterative communication, similar to a back-and-forth real-life discussion with a co-worker, saving time and increasing understanding. Perhaps even more important, the software offers a searchable repository of conversations, documents and files that enables an efficient knowledge transfer to other team members.Many companies have started realizing Slack’s utility in recent weeks. Late Wednesday — in a now-epic tweet thread chronicling the explosion in demand for Slack and pressures on the company to meet it — CEO Butterfield revealed updated growth metrics for the current quarter, and they were jaw-dropping. In about two months, Slack had acquired 9,000 new paid customers, a figure 80% higher than the roughly 5,000 in each of the prior two quarters. Average messages sent per day per user were also up 20%.Slack shares rose 10% Thursday as investors cheered the improving metrics, and have largely held that gain since. It’s important to note that even after these gains, Slack is trading only a few dollars above its $26-a-share initial direct-listing price in June 2019, and for much of its time as a public company has traded below that level. Moreover, there is no guarantee the rising usage will translate into a permanent customer base; there will be some users, perhaps, who drop the service when things are working more normally. And there may be major corporate layoffs and losses from economic shocks that could make larger enterprise deals more difficult to close. Butterfield himself is aware of this, saying Friday in an interview with Bloomberg Television that the company’s current pace of growth “is just not sustainable … We would have the whole world on it in a couple of months if we kept going.”But as workers form new ingrained habits using these tools, they will become that much harder to give up. This points to better sustainable results for Zoom, Slack and Smartsheet over time.This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.Tae Kim is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering technology. He previously covered technology for Barron's, following an earlier career as an equity analyst.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg
Apple Tests Its Secrecy Somewhere New: Employee Homes
(Bloomberg) -- With its 175-acre campus in Cupertino, California, and several dozen more offices across the rest of the world, Apple Inc. wasn’t designed as a work-at-home company. That all changed about three weeks ago in the coronavirus pandemic. Earlier in March, Apple shuttered many facets of its Apple Park and older Infinite Loop campuses as San Francisco Bay Area officials put in place stay-at-home orders. Later, the company told employees that specific approval is needed to gain access to an office, but identification badges remain functional. The shift from office culture to remote work has been challenging for the hardware-focused company with a passion for secrecy. In the past, Apple has gone to great lengths to keep its new products shielded from the public until the company is ready to unveil them. Employees work behind secure doors with blacked-out windows, lock products in cabinets and are barred from discussing their assignments even with spouses. Now, working from home, some are finding it hard to adjust and there have been minor hardware development setbacks, according to Apple employees who asked not to be named talking about company matters.The majority of Apple’s hardware products are engineered at Apple Park or surrounding buildings in Cupertino and Sunnyvale, California. For some work that requires hands-on development, some hardware engineers in Silicon Valley are allowed into the office, the people said. Apple also has hardware engineers in San Diego, California, and global coronavirus hotspots like Italy, Germany and Asia. But the company’s restrictions in those regions are far stronger. Apple has extended its remote work policy until at least April 5, depending on an office’s location. In a notice to staff, Apple said that “whether you’re working at home or at the office, it’s always critical to keep confidential work confidential. While working remotely, use the same care and always securely store confidential items and documents when not in use.”Still, Apple hasn’t paused its efforts to build future devices. The company is working on new versions of the HomePod speaker, Apple TV set-top box, MacBook Pro, budget iPads, Apple Watch and iMac for as early as later this year. The next round of flagship iPhones are targeting release in their normal fall window, Bloomberg News recently reported.Bay Area counties announced Monday they were extending stay-at-home orders until May 1, meaning these restrictions will be in place for at least another month, a key period when Apple finalizes products for later this year and next year.Read more: Apple’s Supply Chain Woes Linger Even as China Recovers“Apple has struck the balance between recognizing that much of the world runs on their products and that they need to keep them functioning and advancing, and they are balancing that with employee safety,” said Gene Munster, a longtime Apple analyst and co-founder of Loup Ventures. “They are reminding us with these small products they’ve recently announced that they’re going to keep working.”In early March, in a contrast to its normal practices, Apple started allowing engineers to take home early versions of future devices to continue work during the lockdown period. Previously, the company allowed select employees to take home nearly complete devices such as iPhones for real world testing. Typically, Apple is a company built on in-person meetings. Designers, for example, gather around kitchen-like tables to dream up future products. Hardware experts engineer and test devices together — things that simply are either more difficult or impossible over the internet.Taking home a future product requires the green light from the vice president of an employee’s organization. That list of staff with future devices at their homes also is sometimes reviewed by Apple’s senior vice presidents, the management team run by Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook. As part of the work-from-home order, Apple has clamped down on which employees are allowed to take home future versions of software, including the next release of iOS, the platform that runs the iPhone and iPad. Like with hardware, employees working on unreleased software, such as the upcoming iOS 14, require approval from the highest levels of the organization, the people said. Some Apple software engineers have privately complained about the difficulties of working from home, including distractions and concern about the on-going health crisis. But Apple’s software releases for later this year are currently on track and the company said it will announce the new versions in June at an online version of its annual developer conference. Meetings have continued by phone and video conferencing. Apple requires employees to communicate via its own FaceTime service, Slack Technologies Inc.’s app and Cisco Systems Inc.’s Jabber or WebEx in order to maintain secrecy. For file sharing, Apple limits working to its suite of productivity apps, Salesforce.com Inc.’s Quip and Box. As part of its shift to working at home, Apple has also sent employees tips on ergonomic work setups, offered to reimburse staff for purchases of desks and computer monitors and has published responses to workers’ concerns about Covid-19. Apple shut all 458 of its stores outside of mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong earlier this month, and the company is holding store employee meetings, known as “Daily Downloads” virtually and on a less regular basis. Deirdre O’Brien, Apple’s senior vice president of people and retail, has also been sending employees messages recorded from her home. Last week, she told employees that some workers and their family members were ill with Covid-19. She also re-iterated that stores would reopen on a case by case basis depending on local conditions possibly as soon as the first half of April.To lighten the mood in an otherwise traumatic period, Apple started a contest for employees to share photos of their work from home setup. The last guideline reads: “If you’re working on anything confidential, please keep it out of the shot.” (Updates with area stay-at-home order extended until May 1 in the seventh paragraph.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Zacks
The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Apple, Cisco, PepsiCo, AstraZeneca and NextEra
The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Apple, Cisco, PepsiCo, AstraZeneca and NextEra
- Simply Wall St.
Should You Like Cisco Systems, Inc.’s (NASDAQ:CSCO) High Return On Capital Employed?
Today we'll look at Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) and reflect on its potential as an investment. To be precise...
- Investing.com
Cisco Stock Falls 4%
Investing.com - Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) Stock fell by 4.21% to trade at $38.88 by 09:39 (13:39 GMT) on Friday on the NASDAQ exchange.
- Bloomberg
With Everyone Working From Home, Go Easy on Netflix
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Work-from-home neophytes are providing some much needed moments of levity right now. The Italian priest livestreaming mass with cat’s ears and whiskers accidentally superimposed on his head. The woman who failed to switch her camera off when she took a bathroom break during a conference call. Children and pets generally making a nuisance of themselves. Even if staged, they warrant a chuckle.The laughter, however, doesn’t resolve the difficulties that many are experiencing as millions more people head into self-isolation and log on from home. For all of the telecommunications operators’ assertions that their networks can cope with the peak loads, there are still things you can do to reduce the likelihood of dropped calls or spotty connections. More than that, the small changes you make can lessen the load on telecoms networks more broadly.Britain’s regulator Ofcom on Tuesday proffered advice on how best to stay connected during Covid-19 self-isolation. It’s well worth reading in its entirety, but top of the list was using your landline or Wi-Fi when possible, rather than a mobile connection. Because most of the top video-calling apps are made by U.S. firms, they’re built for users with ready access to high-speed mobile connections, since unlimited data plans are more common there than in Europe or Asia, according to Nick McQuire, head of enterprise research at market intelligence firm CCS Insight.He says the app conferencing companies have neglected the issue of bandwidth optimization in general. As rising numbers of people use video calls — not just for work, but family visits with the grandparents, third-grade art class and virtual happy hours — those problems risk being highlighted. That’s one reason why Ofcom is encouraging the use of landlines. Spikes in network usage mean operators are having to lean on more and more servers to manage the load than usual, Italian data from network analysis firm Tutela Technologies Ltd. show.In the age of Covid-19, video conferencing is an important channel for maintaining social contact, but some products are easier on the network than others. Stuck at home like many others in London, I carried out a series of tests to see how much data each of the most popular apps required for the same calls, as scientifically as I could given the circumstances. On average, Zoom Video Communications Inc.’s eponymous service and Google Inc.’s Hangouts used more than twice as much data as Apple Inc.’s FaceTime or Cisco Systems Inc.’s Webex.To use FaceTime, though, the participants all need an Apple device — not a given when a top-of-the-range iPhone starts at $1,000. And Webex isn’t exactly easy to use, as my girlfriend grumbled while she helped me test: “The setup for this is definitely the worst.” With Zoom, the data requirements dropped significantly when we tried it around 5 p.m., when usage seems to peak — it appeared to throttle its needs as network capacity became limited.At times it might actually be better to use the mobile network instead of Wi-Fi, according to data from Tutela. Since Italy went into full lockdown on March 12th, the mobile network has on average provided a better quality of service(1) until about 2 p.m., after which Wi-Fi connections have given a more reliable connection. That differs by country, of course, but the trend elsewhere is similar. On March 24th, the first day after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson outlined stricter self-isolation measures, the U.K.’s mobile networks provided better service until about 9 a.m., after which the Wi-Fi was again more reliable.It’s not all about work, of course. There’s been a massive leap in the demands imposed on the network by online gaming. In the week from March 9th, gaming data usage jumped 75% in the U.S., Verizon Communications Inc. said last week. It’s far better to avoid network gaming if you can. And if you plan to park the kids in front of one or more films during the day, think about downloading them overnight rather than streaming them real time.Netflix Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube, Amazon.com Inc. and Walt Disney Co. are already reducing their streaming services’ bandwidth consumption in Europe to alleviate the load on the region’s networks. Using video conferencing smartly could not only make your calls more reliable, but also preempt any limitations being imposed on that technology.And for goodness sake, if you’re on a conference call and not talking, make sure you mute yourself. You know who you are.(1) Tutela considers the test to pass the Excellent Consistent Quality thresholds if it meets all the following criteria: 5 Mbps or greater download speed 1.5 Mbps or greater upload speed 50ms or less one-way latency 30ms or less jitter 1% or less packet lossThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.Alex Webb is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Europe's technology, media and communications industries. He previously covered Apple and other technology companies for Bloomberg News in San Francisco.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg
Cisco Sees Demand Surge for Webex, Zoom’s Larger Rival
(Bloomberg) -- Cisco Systems Inc., the biggest maker of gear that directs internet traffic, said its Webex collaboration service is experiencing a staggering jump in use as companies look to find a way to securely connect workers confined to their homes.Webex daily meeting volume has more than doubled since the beginning of March and expanded 2 1/2 times from February. At peak hours, volume is up 24 times where it would be normally, the company said.Cisco’s conferencing business is the biggest provider of such services to companies with revenue many times the size of newer rivals such as Zoom Video Communications Inc. Demand for these services from home-bound employees during the Covid-19 pandemic indicates that work practices will probably change permanently, said Sri Srinivasan, who heads the company’s collaboration unit.“We will never go back,” he said. “The way we work is going to change forever. Employers are going to be able to hire workers from wider geographic areas because staff won’t have to come to the office as much, he added.While dropped connections and delays getting into meetings has increased, so far Cisco’s technology has just about kept up with the volume, Srinivasan said. The company was able to learn from the steep increase in traffic in Asia early this year and apply those lessons to the U.S., where volume is still increasing.The peak volume for traffic is at 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. Monday through Friday. Internally, Cisco has started a process scheduling calls to begin outside of standard times -- not the top of the hour or 30 minutes past the hour -- and is recommending users do the same.Webex opened a free sign-up and service in response to the virus outbreak that drew 240,000 new subscriptions in the first 24-hour period, the company said. That program mirrors the growth by Zoom, which offers a time-limited free service for its multiparty conference calls and a paid service. Srinivasan said Cisco’s data policies are stricter than Zoom’s, meaning important work that needs to remain private will continue to take place on its system.Cisco no longer breaks out the performance of its collaboration division. The last time it did, revenue was about $4 billion in fiscal year 2015. Since then, the company has frequently cited the unit’s growth as being one of the fastest among its businesses. Zoom is on course for annual sales of about $890 million in calender 2020, according to the average of analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg.At the same time the explosion in traffic is helping collaboration providers make better products much more quickly. Cisco uses artificial intelligence to analyze what’s happening on Webex and increasingly to enhance elements such as call-center software. The company typically deals with 39 billion events (logins, calls, videos initiated, messages sent, etc.) per day on its systems. Last week that number increased to 270 billion a day and is still rising.Regardless of competitive dynamics, Srinivasan said it’s more important that all the services remain stable and continue to improve in order to help with the effort to stop the spread of the virus.(Company corrected the number of new subscriptions in the seventh paragraph of story published March 23.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
