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Cisco Australia's top line heads south

Cisco Systems Australia's overall income slumped in the year to 27 July 2008, new documents have revealed, despite staff growth that saw 118 new employees added to the networking giant's local roster.
Written by Liam Tung, Contributing Writer

Cisco Systems Australia's overall income slumped in the year to 27 July 2008, new documents have revealed, despite staff growth that saw 118 new employees added to the networking giant's local roster.

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Cisco MD: Les Williamson
(Credit: ZDNet.com.au)

Cisco's local financial report for the period, lodged with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission over the past several weeks, revealed a drop in revenue over the past year of 7 per cent to reach $888.8 million.

This year's results were a far cry from the growth Cisco had experienced last year when its revenues had jumped almost 20 per cent from its 2006 earnings of $788.6 million to last year's $956 million.

The downward trend has come as Cisco expanded its headcount by 15 per cent over the period: the company took on 118 staff since last year, bringing its total to 920.

The results were the first released since Cisco's current local managing director Les Williamson took the reins from his predecessor Ross Fowler, who left in August 2007 to lead Cisco's telco business in Europe. Williamson is the former head of Cisco's Telstra account.

Cisco representatives declined to comment on the results today.

The networking giant, which provided the backbone equipment for Telstra's 2005 network refresh, this year launched a partnership with the telco to spruik a joint managed service offering with Cisco's Telepresence conferencing fit-outs.

Cisco's Williamson earlier this year also flagged the company's ambitions to nab work under the National Broadband Network. He has also said the "next great bastion" for networking would be the energy sector's transition from analog to digital networks that would facilitate smart metering.

While Cisco still dominates the high-end switch and router market, HP's ProCurve has been catching up, with the computer giant attacking Cisco on price, coupled with a strategy to pick off Cisco's datacentre networking business. HP's $13.9 billion acquisition of EDS is also likely to give it an advantage in sealing large public sector deals.

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