Interesting perspective. Yes, I think we still have lots of exciting things that could happen as a direct result of the Internet. For example, broadband penetration keeps increasing, which makes all sorts of things possible. True video on demand is here and is generating expectations beating customer demand to Time Warner, at least. The adoption of Internet 2 will happen sometime in the future, with fiber to the home type speeds. Ubiquitous online gaming is taking off like a rocket. B2B continues to grow like gaingbusters. All of these elements will continue to drive innovation and new products and services that will effect the health of our entire economy.
However, Cisco, like you said, is like IBM of old. They are large and dominant. The law of large numbers has caught up with them. Since Cisco really IS the networking king, their growth reflects the market's growth. And right now, it's disappointing. So I think Cisco at least should be categorized as a mature company along with Microsoft and Oracle.
Maybe technology can still be a growth industry again one day, but the growth companies of old that won the war, are now reaping the rewards, namely of being recategorized as mature companies. |
