How do long timers at Cisco feel about the acquisitions taking over instead of assimilating?
1 this too shall pass eventually
2 will make Cisco better
3 can't wait until they go away
4 give them a chance
16 replies (most recent on top)
@qs Absolutely
The "hands off" is what made Meraki successful and apart from cancerous Cisco. Contrast with other acq where Cisco puts there hands all over it day one, and destroys it (e.g. Viptela).
@gj Very true, but Meraki was a bit different. The founders negotiated a "hands off" period. Which is why Meraki was pretty much left along for as long as it was.
I don't think you'll see that anymore.
Cisco assimilates all acquisitions to an extent.
They always make a presentation post acquisition and say nothing will be changing. This is known as the 12-14mo honeymoon phase.
After that, all bets are off. If there is a dept within Cisco that does the same type of work as the aquisition? Better start kissing a$$ or looking for another role elsewhere.
@bn apparently you haven't been paying attention but Meraki has been assimilated
How much revenue is Splunk generating per quarter or yearly ?
Splunk is hardly the only company Cisco aquired at the peak of its hype cycle for insane money....
The trick for acquisitions is surely ideally aquiring a proven salable technology up-cycle
(which Cisco did for switching, ATM, UC, Meraki, Security to a much lesser extent..)
Not purchasing for insane money some over-priced behemoth about to slowly fall...
see Scientific Atlanta (huh!?), NDIS (set top boxes!?), Splunk...
@b2 splunk is being destroyed now. Moral is in the gutter and the best people have already left.
@bn+1k4cvz237
Meraki no longer exists as a BU
Fully absorbed into GVS
Cisco's entire history past the original router was made of acquisitions.
The Catalyst of Cisco Catalyst was it's own company. The collaboration portfolio is probably a dozen+ individual acquisitions in a trench coat. Sometimes the integration goes well. Sometimes it's a disaster.
I will say; as products at least Splunk and Meraki were sound in their own right. Whether they integrate well into the larger portfolio remains to be seen. There's also a question of whether they need to integrate. I don't think Meraki is going to merge any time soon. But it's been a better SMB position than the Linksys acquisition was.
In the company's history, how many of its acquisitions were truly successful with their product and employee integration?
A lot of smart people at Splunk. Their organization will be slowly destroyed, they will lose market share and see it fall to ashes. Just ask the folks at WebEx, same thing happened there. Cisco hasn't changed their acquisition methods for decades and never will. The problem isn't just CR, its Cisco as a whole from getting the acquired products into the selling market so we can actually fulfill orders, moving the acquired team into Cisco and keeping the key players at the company.
@am Splunk will get an accounting markdown very quietly at the end of an earnings call someday, and shortly thereafter will be sold off again for $5bln and will never be spoken of again. This is AOL/TimeWarner level of stupidity and easily the most ill-conceived acquisition in the US in the last five years (in any industry). I wonder how much champagne was poured at Datadog on the day Cisco made this blunder; CR handed them the observability market.
If the board had any ba--s they would have fired CR for spending ( borrowing) $28B on a company that had only one year in its history of making money, and was in a market position that was being commoditized. This was a massive strategic fail...one of many under CR's reign as CEO
Splunk was a good company and had motivated, dedicated employees.
They had a good culture.
Cisco drew a venn on the back of a napkin and decided they needed the Splunk data and customers to profit from AI. They were wrong.
$28 Billion Dollars Wrong.
Splunk is now just another failed cisco market transition failure (remember cloud?)
How did Cisco lose in cloud to a bookseller?
I don't have an axe to grind with Splunk but they were brought in to ten seconds of fanfare and then never spoken of again. Well. other than in LR scuttlebutt.
Cisco ELT has to be regretting their decision to break open the piggy bank to buy a yesteryear log observability platform on the eve of the AI revolution.