April 18th, 2005
The view from Cisco's helm
In an interview with News.com, Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers describes Cisco’s ideal takeover target as a company with "about 100 people, primarily in an engineering product area, with good engineers that are just about to bring a new product out (or has just come out.)" About the talk of Nortel as a possible acquisitions target, he says:
I’ve been wanting to partner with Nortel for five to six years. I still believe that–much like we did with IBM and with Ericsson–strategic partnership is the right way to go. Acquisitions have a much higher risk.
Chambers discusses his management philosophy (he takes his managerial cues from former General Electric CEO Jack Welch), corruption in the telecom industry, and his plans for steering Cisco through the latest round of consolidation…
David Grober is managing editor of ZDNet Blogs. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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