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Barton Biggs sees opportunity in equities, particularly big-cap techs. They are "way too cheap,...
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Tuesday, June 7, 2011, 4:35 PM ETBarton Biggs sees opportunity in equities, particularly big-cap techs. They are "way too cheap, trading almost like value stocks." He's cautious towards financials, seeing the possibility of additional write-downs as home prices continue to fall.
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You're a Mad Hatter - you just don't know it yet.
P.s. You'll actually need about four or so of those fabs to have the scale to compete with Intel, but I greatly oversimplified your task, which is still daunting as simplified.
I hazard a guess that this is a very short period of time in relative terms. Barton Biggs has been doing this for a very long time. Judging from your picture, I would say probably longer than you have been alive.
Being founder and COO of a technology company means virtually nothing these days, As you say yourself, "It's cheaper than ever to start a tech business".
So, how big is your tech business, Chief, so that we can get some idea of the size of pedestal you have installed yourself on?
With those credentials, you still want to position yourself as more saavy about the field than Barton Biggs. I am sorry, but my friendliest advice is that you should consider your words more carefully before you make a fool of yourself.
ARE YOU FREAKING CRAZY?
If your looking to sell out while the "pump and dumper" scam is in full tilt{cnbc}etc...Well shame on you and shame on anyone foolish enough to listen to you now.
Risk reward is clearly down, today's close was a nightmare.Waterfall event imminent!
Jerry
1. Weakness in how the competition steals market share
2. Focusing on the hottest selling and best loved products
3. A change in the way the products are being positioned
Cisco lost their way in 2008, with the initial deployment of the Nexus line. John Chamber's as CEO of Cisco had successful lead his company to innovate and create one of the best selling data center switches of all times, the 6500 series switch. John Chambers was responsible for the successful acquisition and integration of over 100 companies. In 2008, the vision was for Cisco to become the next version of what IBM was in the 70's and 80s.
This was done with a massive server/storage play, the Nexus switch was introduced to tie the storage networks, which up until them had traditionally been separate on their own fiber networks. These would all be integrated under one banner, and it would be Cisco's that was the vision, here is where it came up short.
In 2008 Juniper had just finished integrating Netscreen into their company, and had just finished their first line of switches with an aggressive foray into Cisco's market share. Juniper's experience in the carrier market with their M-series router, had earned them a reputation for reliability, Juniper was eager to execute on this while grabbing Cisco's Market share in the enterprise.
This was the stage for what has played out over the past 3 years.
When Cisco introduced the Nexus switches, to merge data and storage, and at the same integrate tightly with their UCS servers. This was a complete paradigm shift from a company that was used to selling the primarily the network infrastructure.
Cisco meet w/ customers and channel resellers to discuss the new paradigm. In affect the mis-step was, that Cisco would walk into customers ready willing and able to execute on network purchase order's for the hottest selling switch on the planet the 6500 series with a tightly integrated firewall the FWSM, and instead attempt to sell them on simultaneously replacing their SAN for storage and their Servers.
The customers network team's scratched their heads, this was like Honda taking throngs of customer's looking for an Accord and introducing the all new, "not an Accord". To replace the server and storage side would require testing and integration from multiple departments.
During this time while the customer's were scratching there heads and evaluating this new paradigm and testing the brand new technology, Juniper hot off the heals of integrating the #1 firewall seller on the planet walked in with a firewall they customers were likely already buying and reputation for reliability from their success in the carrier market. Juniper walked in and had a proposition to sell switches, and Netscreen Firewalls. These required no cross department buy off and no testing.
Cisco couldn't complete a Nexus/UCS evaluation in the time it took Juniper to make a sale.
This set the stage for Juniper to start making their own mis-steps, they took the hottest selling firewall on the planet with its own OS and GUI, and killed it to make their SRX firewalls. This enraged the Netscreen talent which left to found Palo Alto Networks.
Despite Juniper's mis-step and there EX switches which had some issues and were released slightly before they were ready for prime time Juniper was still able to sell their "Not a netscreen" firewall, and their not quite ready switches, while Cisco was still demoing their "Not a 6500" switch and complete new paradigm.
Fast forward to the present, Cisco has lost a small market share to Juniper 42,000M in sales vs 4,200m. Juniper has lost their firewall talent, Netscreen was number 1 in the world by sales, and now the Netscreen people are Palo Alto Networks.
Cisco has re-emphasized the 6500 series, and are selling the Nexus switches w/o the emphasis on the integration, they are priced competitely for data uses alone, and the customers can turn on the other features with additional modules or licenses.
Juniper has lost the sharpness on their sword to penetrate new accounts, and Cisco has been sharpening theirs.
Disclosure Long on CSCO via Calls.