NFL Free Agency News

SAN JOSE Calif., April 30, 2009 – Cisco today announced that it will participate in the following upcoming events with the financial community during the month of May. The events will be webcast. Interested parties can view these events on Cisco’s Investor Relations Web site at http://www.cisco.com/go/investors. JP Morgan JP Morgan Technology Media Telecom Conference 2009 Monday, May …

This week, in a remarkable speech to the National Academy of Sciences, President Obama laid out a bold vision for America to maintain its global lead in innovation.  In his remarks, the President said, “Scientific innovation offers us a chance to achieve prosperity.  It has offered us benefits that have improved our health and our lives—improvements we take too easily for granted.”

I could not agree more that America can’t take innovation for granted.  One of the most important ways we can ensure continued U.S. scientific leadership is to make needed reforms to our patent system.  I had the honor of testifying today at a hearing of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee in favor of the Patent Reform Act of 2009 (HR 1260).  My basic message was this:  At a time when we must do everything possible to stimulate economic growth and job creation, the flaws in our patent law drain resources away from research and job creation, and toward unjustified patent suits.  The longer we wait to address these widely acknowledged problems, the more we will sap the innovation and job creation potential of the tech industry.

SAN JOSE, Calif. – April 30, 2009 – Cisco will host the IT Innovations Forum, a live interactive online conference for businesses to get updates on the company’s latest network routing and switching enhancements, and guidance on managing network infrastructure efficiently. The forum features insight from customers, industry analysts, technology experts, and fellow attendees. The IT Innovations Forum will feature numerous sessions, including: <span class=” …

My two year old son and I walk to the mailbox to get the mail every evening.  He loves it.  And, of course, he is a big help.  “Hold mail, hold mail, hold mail” he says as he walks to the front door spilling much of the mail along the way.  Yesterday, we were doing this little chore and there was a hand-written note addressed to my wife…this stood out, because usually it is bills, flyers and magazines.

The note it turns out was a personal, hand-written thank you card from an associate at Brooks Brothers, where my wife bought a suit over the weekend.  I thought this was extraordinarily high-touch and very, very cool.  At Cisco, we LOVE our customers…and while I cannot write a personal thank you note to each customer, I thought I would write a collective one in this space.

Dear valued Cisco customer:

Each month, we look at different organizations across various industries to see how unified communications is transforming their businesses. This month we highlight academic institutions, from school districts to colleges and universities, and how these educational establishments are using Microsoft’s UC software to change the ways they communicate and collaborate.

The University of Kentucky

With over 44,000 faculty and students, the University of Kentucky (UK) is the state’s primary public institute of higher education. UK offers over 200 degree programs to students at its main campus in Lexington, and through distance learning programs.

Like any bustling business with thousands of employees in hundreds of departments working from dozens of locations, the University needed a solution to facilitate easier, real-time communication for its staff and students.

The UK implemented Office Communications Server 2007 to meet the challenge. With presence, instant messaging, and audio, video, and Web conferencing integrated into its core administrative, IT and educational applications, the university streamlined communications across the learning community. Just a few of the results include:

·         Improved productivity and an estimated 15 minutes saved per day per user

·         Reduced travel costs associated with meetings throughout the university system

For additional details on the University of Kentucky’s use of Office Communications Server 2007, see this Microsoft case study: University Adopts Unified Communications to Improve Education, Streamline Operations.

Gartner Research also recently completed a case study that reveals how the University of Kentucky benefits from Microsoft’s unified communications solutions. Read more here:  Case Study: University of Kentucky Uses Unified Communications to Enhance Communication and Cut Costs. (Gartner Inc., Jay Lassman, March, 2009)

Other educational organizations across the globe are choosing Microsoft Unified Communications too. Check out these Microsoft Case Studies for more details: 

A collection of case studies can be found at the Microsoft Case Study website: www.microsoft.com/casestudies.

SAN JOSE, Calif, – April 28, 2009 – Today, Cisco delivers a webcast and corresponding slide presentation highlighting its security vision, market opportunity and expansion of its security and collaboration portfolio. Who: co-hosted by Cisco executives, Doug Dennerline, senior vice president and general manager of Collaboration Software Group and Tom Gillis, vice president and general manager, Security Business Group – to discuss Cisco’s security …

Very timely opinion article in our hometown San Jose Mercury News by Cisco’s own Dr. Kaveh Savafi.  He argues for inserting more technology into the healthcare system and for bringing back the housecall via TelePresence in the home.

He states, in part:

All it takes is a visit to your local doctor to know that, as a society, we have much to do to bring health care into the 21st century. We can stream movies, share our family photos and videos, and purchase just about anything online, but in most doctors’ offices a clipboard passes for technology.

We need to modernize our health care system by embracing a different model — a transformational health care environment. Doctors shouldn’t be confined to an office with a backed-up waiting room. We need to bring back the house call, but this time virtually through two-way, real-time video.

Read the the full piece here.

MANAMA, Bahrain, April 28, 2009 – The Cisco Networking Academy®, in collaboration with Gulf Business Machines (GBM) and the Bahrain Training Institute (BTI), are helping create opportunities for 50 Bahraini students with special needs by providing Internet Technology (IT) skills to prepare them for entry-level IT positions in various fields. The announcement was made following a meeting between Hanan Kamal, Undersecretary, …

Photos TelePresence 3000 <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/25679159@N03/3480647386/” title=” …

Once again, Cisco is proud to have been recognized by Bowen Craggs (in a collaborative project with the Financial Times) as the #1 corporate news site serving media…and #1 for serving customers.

As I said last year when we also were recognized as #1 in both of these categories:

I’m obviously very happy that my colleagues on the News@Cisco team got the recognition for serving the media, however from a Cisco shareholder perspective I’m very pleased that we are #1 for serving customers.

The survey was conducted by Bowen Craggs, a corporate website advisory firm that benchmarks company websites.

In the following video, Jeanette Gibson, Director of New Media, thanks Bowen Craggs and the FT for the recognition and talks about our philosophy of making the site a place to interact with Cisco through blogs, twitter, facebook and more.

This is my first video shot on my new Flip Mino HD Video camera.  Waddyathink?