Q&A: Cisco CEO John Chambers describes how next-gen data center will affect business.
As Cisco Systems continues to push further into the data center, CEO John Chambers is looking to make Cisco a strategic partner to large IT customers there. At Cisco's annual C-Scape industry analyst conference in December, Chambers went so far as to declare Cisco's intent to be a leader not just in the networking and communications industry but also in the computer industry itself. Senior Editor Paula Musich spoke with Chambers about Cisco's next-generation data center initiative and how Cisco intends to achieve it.
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Can we expect to see partnerships between Cisco and other server virtualization providers such as Citrix Systems and Microsoft? If so, how soon?
We don't share our moves prior to making them public. I think you will continue to see us active both from an internal development, a partnering and acquisition role across the whole data center. We have an expanding relationship with Microsoft, and we have similar views of how the data center might evolve. And so I'd be surprised and disappointed if you didn't see us move with Microsoft on some opportunities, even though we might compete in some areas, like unified communications. That's really the future.
The days of complete friend or foe are long gone. Within that, EMC is the one that is aligned closest with Cisco with very little overlap. But we clearly want to partner with all the players—the IBMs, the HPs, the EMCs, the Microsofts. We are one of the few companies that have traditionally done that, and I don't underestimate that it's hard.
Read the entire eWeek interview, here.