It looks like Cisco is going head-to-head against e-mail software giant Microsoft with its $215 million acquisition of PostPath, a maker of e-mail and calendaring software. PostPath apparently touts its PostPath Server e-mail and collaboration server as a replacement or supplement to Microsoft Exchange. What's more interesting is that Cisco plans to put the server in the cloud and selling an e-mail and calendaring service to its customers - this is perhaps Cisco's first formal offering in the oh-so fashionable cloud computing space that pundits have been busy discussing. READ MORE.
It seems the Cisco + EMC/VMware rumors just won't go away. Barron's is reporting that stock-market site theflyonthewall.com is writing that a 3.1% increase in VMware shares today to $38.12 reflects speculation that Cisco is to up its stake in the virtualization company. Cisco owns 6.9% of VMware's Class A shares, or about 1.5% of the company, reports Barron's. EMC owns 84% of VMware.
Former Cisco CTO Judy Estrin says U.S. innovation has lost its edge08/26/08Judy Estrin, entrepreneur and former Cisco CTO, has a less than flattering view of U.S. innovation, saying 
that the climate for innovation that fuels enconomic growth has been diluted on a reliance of quick fixes and fast products, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. In her book, "Closing the Innovation Gap," Estrin explains that just as trees need good soil and climate to create healthy forests, start-ups require an "innovative ecosystem." She says: "What happens to trees is root rot in which the leaves and branches look fine for a while until the tree topples over and dies," she said. "We've already got the root rot."
This week's Democratic National Convention in Denver has accelerated the roll out of telecommuting technologies in some businesses, reports Cisco Subnet's Jamey Heary in his blog. Worried that their 
employees won't be able to get to work due to the many road closures and increase in traffic, some local employers have set up remote access teleworker services. "Some businesses, using the DNC as a catalyst, are taking a more long term approach and rolling out VPN routers and IP telephony to home offices in an effort to cut voice costs and provide employees the same experience they have at the office," writes Jamey. One such company is Johns Manville, a maker of insulation and roofing supplies which has introduced a Cisco VPN to its employees.
Cisco certified folks have been invited by Cisco to vote on potential new logos that will "represent Cisco career certifications on learning materials, as well as on promotional items such as shirts, hats, and jackets," writes Tassos (CCIE # 19858) in his blog. There are two choices - view them on Tassos blog. Between the comments on the blog postings of Tassos, CCIE Pursuit, and Carl Project, the preferred choice by Cisco certified folks seems to be split. Did you vote for the logo that reminds CCIE Pursuit of a film festival award logo, or the one that Tassos says would be good for stickers?
Latest suitor in Cisco mega acquisition rumor: Brocade08/25/08Just as San Francisco Bay Area residents are waiting for the next big earthquake to happen, the market is 
waiting for Cisco to make its next big acquisition and are busying themselves with throwing names into the ring. Last week Wall Street rumor mongers linked Cisco with Brocade, suggesting that the tie-up would enable Cisco to block Brocade's $3 billion acquisition of Foundry Networks and to give Cisco a lift in the storage market.
If you're waiting for the day when Cisco is the only name to be seen on Linksys boxes, this snippet from 
the Orange County Business Journal will interest you. While Linksys is identified as "a division of Cisco" on the packaging, this will change to "Linksys by Cisco" with "Cisco" getting the same sized lettering in coming years, reports the newspaper. The snippet is from OCBJ's interview with Linksys senior VP and general manager Michael Pocock, who took over the reins two years ago from Linksys co-founders Victor and Janie Tsao.
Summit Data Communications has taken embedded Wi-Fi a step further, with the release of two radio 
modules, one in compact flash another in PCMCIA form factors, supporting Windows CE and version 4.0 of the Cisco Compatible Extensions (CCX).
Cisco and private lender Yes Bank announced the launch of a new state-of-the-art contact center in 
Gurgaon that will allow the bank to offer its customers voice-activated telephone banking, reports Network Computing. The Yes Touch Phone Banking system integrates voice and data to give bank customers 24x7 access to their accounts. Over the phone, voice recognition technologies allow customers to verbally order account info. Customers can also access their accounts via e-mail, Web chat, IVR and, if all that automated technology fails them, they can even speak to an actual human being over the phone, too.
CCIE water cooler gossip: CCIE number is now up to 21809Back on July 8 the CCIE Number stood at 21419, it reached 21809 on August 20, this increase of 390 new CCIEs divided by 43 days, works out to an ...Read more
Brad Reese is research manager at BradReese.Com, advancing the careers of 1 million certified individuals in the growing Cisco Career Certification Program.
Get Smart about CCNA Security – Part 2 of 2(Wendell here - Kevin's wrapping up today on CCNA Security - thanks, Kevin!) Kevin Wallace, CCIE #7945, CCSI, CCSP, CCNP, CCDP, CCVP, is a full-time instructor of Cisco courses for SkillSoft ...Read more
Wendell Odom, CCIE No, 1624, splits time between writing books for Cisco Press and teaching classes for Skyline ATS. His books include titles on QoS, CCIE R/S, as well as several titles related to CCNA certification, including his newest book Official Exam Certification Library (CCNA Exam 640-802) (Read a sneak peek of chapter 7). Follow Wendell's blog here. More free chapters from other Cisco Press books here.
Good Jobs are Out There, the Economy is Not in RecessionIf you're thinking the economy is doing very poorly right now, I would argue that you have given in to the media and political hype. Are we experiencing record ...Read more
Morris is a Technical Team Lead and Network Architect at a $3 billion high-tech company. His background is in enterprise WANs working with telcos, and developing large-scale routing designs.
Getting help in JUNOSI discussed in the previous post how candidate configurations, explicit commits, and rollbacks greatly increase the reliability of configuration changes in JUNOS and reduce the risk of configuration mistakes. Heaven ...Read more
Jeff is president of Jeff Doyle and Associates, an IP networking consultancy, and author of Routing TCP/IP, Volumes I (read an excerpt) and II. Read the transcript of our live online text chat with Jeff entitled "IPv6: Will matter to the enterprise in five years."
For downtown Denver businesses, DNC conference sparks mass roll out of work from home solutionsThe Democratic National Convention is in my home state this year. Many of my downtown Denver customers and friends have worked diligently over the past couple months to setup a ...Read more
Jamey Heary, CCIE No. 7680, is a security consulting systems engineer at Cisco. Jamey is the author of Cisco NAC Appliance: Enforcing Host Security with Clean Access. Read a chapter from the book here. Follow Jamey's blog here. More free chapters from other Cisco Press books here.
Manufacturers' Inside Sales vs. Channel Partners: the good, the bad and the ugly Manufacturers' inside sales versus Channel Partners; the good, the bad and the ugly I received a call from a CIO this weekend while playing golf, the call started on the ...Read more
Larry Chaffin, Ph.D, is the CEO/chairman and founder of Pluto Networks a consulting company specializing in VoIP, WLAN and security. He is also author of a number of books including Managing Cisco Secure Networks, Skype Me, Practical VOIP Security, and Configuring Check Point NGX VPN-1/Firewall-1.
Call Routing Part 10: Translation PatternsTranslation Patterns in CUCM are very similar to Route Patterns, but they do not have a Call Routing destination. Route Patterns point to Route Lists or gateways, while translation ...Read more
Dennis Hartmann, CCIE No. 15651, is a unified communications consultant and author of Implementing Cisco Unified Communications Manager, Part 1. Dennis is also a lead instructor at Global Knowledge.
Cisco and Linksys Channel Programs Get Merged Cisco Systems has announced the elimination of the Linksys channel program, and the intent to fold as many as 20,000 channel partners into the “Registered” tier of the overall Cisco ...Read more
Ken Presti is president of Presti Research & Consulting, Inc., which specializes in go-to-market strategies for technology vendors and service providers.
Cisco Telepresence: Pretty Spooky…A while back I had my first experience using a Cisco Telepresence system (3000), and I thought that I would share some thoughts. My overall impression is that it is pretty ...Read more
Mark Lewis (CCIE#6280) is an independent consultant who helps service provider and large enterprise clients design and implement leading-edge technologies. Mark has designed and implemented a variety of large-scale technology solutions including VPN, MPLS, QoS, data center, and IP telephony. Mark is the author of Comparing, Designing, and Deploying VPNs; Troubleshooting Virtual Private Networks; and CCIE Voice Exam Quick Reference Sheets.
10 Tips for taking the CCIE Lab examFor those of you who are preparing for CCIE Lab exam. I found this on the CCIE website, thought it might be useful to share. Some of them seem trivial, ...Read more
Yusuf Bhaiji, CCIE #9305 (R&S and Security), is the program manager for the Cisco CCIE Security certification and CCIE Proctor in Cisco Dubai Lab. Yusuf is the author of Cisco Press titles CCIE Security Practice Labs and Network Security Technologies and Solutions, of which we have 15 copies to give away. Click for competition details, or take a sneak peek of a chapter from the book. More free chapters from other Cisco Press books here.
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Why one-time passwords don't work for SSL VPN vulnerabilities
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Out goes Cisco, in comes ShoreTel VoIP for the City of Oakland
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Cisco warns of WebEx ActiveX security hole
Cisco is warning of a buffer overflow flaw in an ActiveX control used by the WebEx Meeting Manager. If exploited, hackers could execute arbitrary code on the user client machine. The WebEx Meeting Manager is a client-side program that is provided by the Cisco WebEx meeting service, which automatically downloads, installs, and configures Meeting Manager the first time a user begins or joins a meeting. Workarounds to the problem is available at Cisco, which said WebEx is in the process of upgrading the meeting service infrastructure with fixed versions of the affected file. READ MORE.
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Cisco has launched a support wiki for partners and customers to share their knowledge of Cisco gear on top of Cisco documents. According to Cisco: "This augmentation of knowledge gives our user community a medium to share knowledge and improve their overall effectiveness."
VIDEORob Salvagno, senior director of Business Development, discusses Cisco's Nuova acquisition, a follow-on to Cisco's initial investment in August 2006. Nuova's first product is the Nexus 5000.
VIDEOJapan's NTT Group deploys new Cisco ASR 1000 Series routers to deliver advanced services. (3:54)
PODCASTTop analyst discusses edge networking trends and environmental and cost of ownership benefits that new Cisco ASR 1000 Series routers deliver to service providers relative to competitive solutions. (10:37)
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