????成為家喻戶曉的品牌的確是一種誘惑。因此，思科（Cisco）首席執行官約翰?錢伯斯率領公司進軍消費者市場的策略無可厚非。但從根本上來說，這種誘惑只是一種表象。思科的核心產品是路由器與網絡設備。或許這些業務并不光鮮亮麗，但它們卻是思科發展的根本所在。而在消費者領域，思科的表現并不理想。

????在這種狀況下，思科于上周宣布，公司將停止生產頗受歡迎的Flip攝像機，并提升其對核心業務的投入。但思科的此次轉變將面臨很多挑戰：網絡設備市場正在快速變化，產品價格不斷下降（進而導致利潤減少），并且，越來越多的新公司正在進入這一市場，并與思科展開競爭。

????盡管如此，憑借在網絡設備市場三分之二的份額，思科依然是業界領導者。而且，隨著經濟的逐步復蘇，大客戶也終將重啟擱置已久的采購計劃（資金短缺的政府項目除外）。

????那么，市場的不確定性有多大呢？2010年，思科網絡設備部門的收入增長了約10%，但整個行業的利潤卻激增了42%。與此同時，該部門的市值下跌了23%，這主要歸因于思科股票的疲軟表現。思科股票在2010年持續下跌，而2011年的下跌幅度更大。今年年初，思科股票的價格約為27美元，而上周五收盤價幾乎跌破17美元。

????投資者一直在呼吁，思科公司應該關閉消費者業務，尤其是Flip業務。盡管Flip頗受歡迎，但其利潤微薄，且前景不夠樂觀，因為智能手機的內置視頻功能在不斷提高。比如蘋果（Apple）iPhone 4具有同樣出色的視頻功能，那為什么還要購買Flip呢？2009年，思科以5.9億美元收購了Flip攝像機的制造商——純數字科技公司（Pure Digital）。盡管此次收購看起來物有所值，但許多投資者認為，這對思科沒有太大的實際效果。

????（既然Flip攝像機仍然有人買，思科為何不把Flip部門賣掉呢？許多人對此存有疑問。《福布斯》（Forbes）的一位博主認為，關閉該部門是一個 “魯莽的、戲劇性的結果”，采取這一手段，只是為了平息輿論對公司消費者業務策略的批評。另外一種可能是，思科管理層認為，他們無法從公開市場中收回收購成本，而關閉Flip業務則是成本最低的一種選擇；或者，思科只是希望產品的技術繼續掌握在自己手中。畢竟，它依然在做視頻業務。但思科公司對此未發表任何評論。）

????思科的核心業務擁有更大的利潤空間，但目前正被壓縮。瞻博網絡（Juniper Networks）與Aruba網絡（Aruba Networks）等競爭對手不斷壓低價格，使思科面臨很大壓力。截止到目前，盡管思科尚能承受降價帶來的壓力，但錢伯斯和他的公司能夠堅持多久，前景并不明朗。同時，其他大大小小的競爭對手正在進入該市場。惠普（Hewlett-Packard）便是其中之一。它一方面與思科在服務器業務領域展開激烈競爭，同時還在不斷加大對網絡設備的投入。

????乍看來，思科在交換業務市場上占有80%的市場份額，毛利率在75% - 80%之間，這一表現似乎令人滿意。在截止去年7月份的財年中，思科的銷售額增長了12%。

????但這只是虛假的表象。今年，思科在該市場的銷售額增長率下降至7%，而其競爭對手卻在降低價格，僅將利潤率保持在40%或50%，甚至更低。雖然這并沒有使交換機市場陷入惡性競爭，但趨勢已經非常明顯。因此，盡管截至目前，思科在該市場占有三分之二的份額，但錢伯斯卻表示，交換機業務是一個“艱難的市場”。

????花旗集團（Citigroup）分析師約翰?斯拉克在上周的一份報告中表示：“思科需要在保住市場份額與保持利潤率之間做出選擇。它不可能兩者兼得。”這雖然不是一種零和游戲，但思科無法做到永遠阻止競爭對手并保住現有市場份額，這一點毋庸置疑。

????關閉Flip業務可以維持全公司的利潤率，但思科還需要采取更多措施。去年Flip業務的收入僅為3.25億美元，不足公司銷售額的1%。收購Flip業務的目的，是為思科開拓家用視頻業務，而后者侵蝕了公司的利潤。

????錢伯斯表示，公司將以“外科手術式的精準操作”來執行未來的戰略，但他并未透露詳細的行動計劃。在關閉Flip業務后，思科還將在消費者市場表現不佳的ūmi視頻會議業務與Eos媒體服務器產品撤出了消費者市場，并將這兩項業務納入其企業業務組合。

????思科公司近期聘請加里?摩爾為首席運營官，他將負責思科新的核心業務。公司于上周確定了五個“優先發展業務”：路由與交換、云計算與數據中心、“架構”（網絡設計）以及視頻業務。

????公司的Linksys家庭網絡產品可以勉強合并到“路由與交換”業務，其Scientific Atlanta機頂盒業務被合并到視頻業務中。但是，在其他消費者業務與視頻業務被整合到思科專注于企業市場的業務線中后，這兩項業務似乎都可以出售了，而分析家似乎普遍認為，接下來，思科應該拆分這兩種業務。

????錢伯斯在上周表示：“我們將把主要精力集中在協助企業與服務提供商客戶，優化和擴展其為消費者提供的產品與服務，并保證開展這些業務的網絡性能。”這些含糊不清的言論幾乎沒有任何意義——他并沒有明確表示要保留或者關閉思科剩余的消費者業務。總之，思科極有可能在近期“甩掉”Linksys與Scientific Atlanta業務中的一項或者兩項。

??? 翻譯：劉進龍

????There's a certain allure to being a household name, so you almost can't blame Cisco CEO John Chambers for trying to push his company into consumer markets. But that allure is ultimately superficial. Cisco's core products are routers and networking equipment. Those businesses might be dull, but that's where Cisco has thrived. On the consumer front, it has flopped.

????Last week, Cisco announced that it would stop making the popular Flip camcorder. The company announced that it would focus more on its core businesses. The challenge there is that the networking-gear business is rapidly changing, with prices (and hence, margins) falling and new competitors entering the market.

????Still, Cisco is the leader, owning as it does about two-thirds of the market for networking equipment. And with the economy recovering, big customers are finally making needed purchases they had been putting off for as long as they could. (One exception: cash-strapped governments.)

????How uncertain is the market? Consider that 2010 saw revenues in Cisco's sector grow by about 10%, while industry profits soared by 42%. At the same time, the sector's market value fell by 23%, mainly thanks to Cisco's limp stock. Cisco fell steadily throughout 2010, and has spent 2011 dropping even more sharply. It started the year at about $27. It closed Friday at just above $17.

????Investors had been clamoring for the company to exit the consumer business. The Flip, in particular, suffered from thin margins and -- though it was popular -- a highly uncertain future as the built-in video functionality of smartphones kept improving. Why buy a Flip when the Apple iPhone 4's video feature is just about as good? Cisco bought Flip-maker Pure Digital for $590 million in 2009 -- a relatively small purchase for the highly acquisitive company but, to many investors, a hugely symbolic one.

????(Many people have asked, given that the product is still selling, why Cisco didn't sell off the Flip. One Forbes blogger decided shutting down the division was "a flashy and dramatic denouement" to appease critics of the company's consumer strategy. It seems more likely that Cisco execs decided they couldn't have recouped its purchase price on the open market, and simply flipping the switch on Flip was the least costly option. Or maybe Cisco just wants to keep the product's technology for itself – it is, after all, still in the video business. The company did not respond to a request for comment.)

????Cisco's core business enjoys much better profit margins, but those margins could be narrowing. Competitors like Juniper Networks And Aruba Networks are putting pressure on prices. Cisco has thus far been able to resist lowering prices, but it's not clear how long Chambers and co. can hold out. Meanwhile, other competitors, large and small, are entering the market. Even as Cisco takes on Hewlett-Packard in the server business, HP is investing big in networking equipment.

????A snapshot view of the switching business makes things look great for Cisco. It has an 80% market share. Gross margins are in the 75-80% range. Sales grew by 12% in the fiscal year that ended last July.

????But that's deceptive. In the current year, sales growth has fallen to about 7%, and competitors are cutting prices, accepting margins of just 40 or 50%, or even less. That hardly makes switches a commodity business, but the trend is clear. That's why Chambers last week called the switch business a "tough market" even though his company, for now, controls two-thirds of it.

????In a note last week, Citigroup analyst John Slack wrote that, "Cisco needs to choose between protecting share or preserving margins. It simply can't do both." The reality might be less zero-sum than that, but it's true that Cisco won't be able to fend off competitors forever and keep its market share.

????Killing off the Flip will help shore up company-wide margins, but Cisco will likely have to do more -- the Flip represented just $325 million in revenue last year, or less than 1% of the company's sales. The purchase was part of a larger strategy to get Cisco into the home video business, which as a whole has eaten into margins.

????Chambers said future moves will be carried out with "surgical precision," but he didn't offer much in the way of specific plans. As it shut down Flip, the company also absorbed its ūmi videoconferencing business and its Eos media-server products into its business offerings, taking them off the consumer market where they had been languishing.

????Newly hired Chief Operating Officer Gary Moore will head up Cisco's new focus. The company last week identified five "priorities": routing and switching; cloud computing and data centers; "architectures" (network design); and video.

????The company's Linksys home-networking products might, at a stretch, fit into "routing and switching," and its Scientific Atlanta set-top box business fits into video. But with the folding of other consumer and video businesses into Cisco's business-focused lines, both seem ripe for a sale, and analysts generally seem to agree those businesses are the ones that should be next to go from Cisco's portfolio.

????Chambers said last week that, "our consumer efforts will focus on how we help our enterprise and service provider customers optimize and expand their offerings for consumers, and help ensure the network's ability to deliver on those offerings." That's just squishy enough to be almost meaningless -- it could provide a basis for either keeping or getting rid of Cisco's remaining consumer businesses. On balance, it seems likely that it will will cast off one or both of Linksys and Scientific Atlanta in the near future.