Rating: 
Summary: A Profile of an Irresistible Growth Enterprise
Review: Reading this book provides a fairly compact history of Cisco Systems ascent from a start-up to the world's most valuable corporation in less than 20 years. As best I can tell from comparing the book to interviews with Cisco executives and news reports, the data included are pretty accurate.The only significant thing missing from this book is enough context on why Cisco has been more successful than other companies. The details are there, but the highlighting of what is significant is too light. The essential point is that a company needs a vision, strategy, values, culture, management style, and business processes that permit it to prosper from irresistible forces and trends, regardless of how these turn out. Cisco has adhered to this perspective more than almost any other company. The aspects of what Cisco does differently come primarily in using acquisitions to add talent and provide flexibility responses to unclear, emerging technology trends. The accomplishment here is that the talented people stay, are more productive than ever before, and fit comfortably into the Cisco culture. Hardly anyone ever does these things well. The authors also understate the significance of how Cisco has multiplied irresistible forces. The focus on the Internet allows the company to benefit from both Moore's and Metcalfe's Laws. Because of that, Cisco has a very high stock price. That makes for low costs in acquiring and keeping top people, through the use of stock-based acquisitions and stock options. Converging technologies mean that the Internet basis allows the company to impinge on other forms of communications as the convergence occurs. All this means that Cisco has the potential to be 10 times the size of Microsoft. The key difference: Cisco is much more adept at irresistible force management. People who want to understand more about high tech competition, how to create a successful company, and find good investments will all find this book to be valuable. I especially recommend this book to people who are about to start up a new business. Do take the material with a little grain of salt though. As good as Cisco Systems is, they're not quite as good as this book suggests.
Rating:
Summary: Foreshadowing the Fall of Cisco?
Review: Reading this book provides a fairly compact history of Cisco Systems' ascent from a start-up to temporarily being the world's most valuable corporation in less than 20 years. As best I can tell from comparing the book to interviews with Cisco executives and news reports, the data included are pretty accurate. The only significant things missing from this book is enough context on why Cisco has been more successful than other companies, and while it may become less successful in the future. The details are there, but the highlighting of what is significant is too general and light. The essential point is that a company needs a vision, strategy, values, culture, management style, and business processes that permit it to prosper from irresistible forces and trends, regardless of how these turn out. Cisco has adhered to this perspective more than almost any other company involved with the Internet. The aspects of what Cisco does differently come primarily in using acquisitions to add talent and provide flexibility responses to unclear, emerging technology trends. The accomplishment here is that the talented people stay, are more productive than ever before, and fit comfortably into the Cisco culture. Hardly anyone ever does these things well. Cisco's big advantage is that it can quickly take these technologies and expand their distribution. The authors also understate the significance of how Cisco has multiplied irresistible forces. The focus on the Internet allows the company to benefit from both Moore's and Metcalfe's Laws. Because of that, Cisco has enjoyed a very high stock price (although recently it has dropped to being only a mere high stock price). That makes for low costs in acquiring and keeping top people, through the use of stock-based acquisitions and stock options. Converging technologies mean that the Internet basis allows the company to impinge on other forms of communications as the convergence occurs. All this means that Cisco has the potential to be 10 times the size of Microsoft. The key difference: Cisco is much more adept at irresistible force management in the newer technology areas. People who want to understand more about high tech competition, how to create a successful company, and find good investments will all find this book to be valuable. I especially recommend this book to people who are about to start up a new business. Do take the material with a little grain of salt though. As good as Cisco Systems is, they're not quite as good as this book suggests. But without the magical stock price growth, will Cisco be as successful? Probably not. Could overconfidence be part of the problem? The recent slip in the company's expected rate of growth shows that the company is merely mortal after all. Also, if you are looking for a great investment, I think you will find greener pastures in mass storage where the irresistible forces are even stronger. Never mistake temporary alignment with powerful irresistible forces for intelligence.
Rating: 
Summary: A great book about a Great Company
Review: The story of Cisco Systems is a story of the area of the possible. Or how to make the impossible possible.Cisco has moved to levels and broken through plateaus heretofore thought impossble.This company has set the standard of excellence in their industry and their growth has been absolutely mind boggling.A good read and a must read for anyone in business.Also highly suggest Direct From Dell by Mike Dell. Another must read for anyone in business. Another incredible story.
Rating: 
Summary: A bit thin on details, but still a good story
Review: There has not been a review on this bk for a while, so I thought I will do one. With Dot Com crashes, and Cisco laid off 7000+ workers in 2001, John Chambers' ideal of no large company wide lay offs provide an interesting contrast to much of the PR in this bk. I have just finished reading Hard Drive, by Wallace; and Jack Straight from the Gut, by Jack Welch. Compare to these two books, Making the CISCO Connection was a bit thin on details. I do not know if its editorial lapses or the authors understanding of the material, Bunnell keeps making wild claims like " the future is going to be 100% pure IP.." with no supporting evidence. He also spent quite a few passages comparing ATM and IP as if they are competing technology trying to grap market share. ATM is just another way of hooking up networks like Frame Relay, ISDN... etc. and IP is a protocol that happily runs on any network technolgy that support it. Jeff Bezos made a late appearance towards the end of the book, funny the author never mentioned who he was. There were quite a few of this name dropping with no adequate introductions. You'll get used to it and ignore it. Still, a good story on the rise of Cisco, but don't look for a "behing-the-scene" management guidebook. For interesting decision making process of some of these industry players, go for Hard Drive.
Rating:
Summary: Cisco is the network¿
Review: There is no free lunch but there could be free voice; and if "Voice of the people is the voice of God", Cisco will soon be handling the bulk of it. John Chambers is working and waiting for this to happen !. The book begins with an excellent foreword from Karen Southwick and when David Bunnell starts with the main story he is at his best. It is amazing to see Cisco's ability to acquire and integrate dozens of companies to its fold, grow at blazing speed and still maintain the core values and retain its people. The chapters of the book are sequenced well and details on technology are explained in a manner that readers not familiar with networking are able to understand and appreciate the business strategy of Cisco. If one believes that the internet is going to change the way we live, read about the company that has contributed so much to make this happen.
Rating: 
Summary: More pulp non-fiction from the assembly line
Review: This book does a severe disservice to the Cisco story, and to the business book genre in general. The author's lack of insight, much less comprehension of the industry and technology is laughable. Worse yet, his lack of passion for the subject exposes the fact that book was basically a con on his readers. Some representative excerpts:
1) "All and sundry goods could be purchased at McWhorters Express Store in building J. Money was available from the conveniently located ATM." *Talk about telling a compelling story. Alas it has come to this. 2) "The Cisco-Powered Networks campaign was Cisco's first foray into the spehere of the home networking market." *Wow. Time to get a better author, or at least an editor. Hilarious. 3) "Nouns and verbs in Cisco-speak include AccessPath, ClickStart, ..., and FastHub." *What more can one say? Reading this book is laborious, and yet you will learn virtually nothing. Given Cisco's incredible rise from tiny startup to global giant, somebody will eventually write a book that does justice to the story. But not yet, and when they do, I doubt if a "conveniently located ATM" will figure prominently.
Rating:
Summary: The Silent Empire!
Review: This book is surprisingly good...I didn't know much about Cisco when I bought the book, except that its stock has always gone up. I found out how Cisco has gotten its success. The book covers both the technological and business aspects of Cisco really well. "Making..." has a great style, both informative and informal. Cisco truly is the "Information Age" company, and this book clued me in.
Rating:
Summary: Big Disappointment
Review: This book was perhaps the biggest disappointment I have ever experienced in purchasing a book. As a loyal reader of Upside, I expected a hard hitting review of Cisco, what makes it tick and how it achieved its incredible success. Instead, this book could have been written by the Cisco PR team. Parts of it seem to come straight out of Cisco press releases. I could have learned as much or more by reading the Cisco web page. This book added no insights. It contained no interviews at all, grabbing a few quotes out of other publications. It contains no independent research, and says nothing bad whatsoever about Cisco. If this book is to be believed, every employee of Cisco is happy all the time, Cisco has never had any credible competitors, and has never made any mistakes whatsoever. And whether I believe that or not, it makes for a very boring book. Even at only 200 pages of large print, it still contains too much filler - laundry lists of executives, failed competitors, and companies that Cisco bought, with no real explanation of how any of these added to Cisco's growth. Don't waste your time on this book. Read the Cisco web page for the fluff and find an old Upside article on Cisco for the real story.
Rating:
Summary: Don't waste the money, read Cisco's press releases instead
Review: Truly a puff piece. The authors don't acknowledge any of the major challenges facing Cisco or give any sort of balanced review of the company. Cisco and technological innovation are about as far apart as they are at Microsoft. It's just a marketing machine, pure and simple.
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