Cisco looks to the cloud

Article Excerpt

CISCO SYSTEMS INC. $22 (Nasdaq symbol CSCO; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 5.2 billion; Market cap: $114.4 billion; Priceto- sales ratio: 2.5; Dividend yield 3.4%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.cisco.com) plans to invest $1 billion over the next two years on building a new cloud-computing service, which will let businesses lease data processing and storage systems instead of buying their own. This is a small investment for Cisco, which earned $2.5 billion, or $0.47 a share, in its latest quarter. However, cloud computing could become an important new business for Cisco, and cut its reliance on selling routers and other networking hardware. Demand for cloud services is growing fast, as they let corporations and government agencies cut their computing costs. Moreover, these big clients are more likely to trust wellestablished suppliers like Cisco instead of other cloud competitors like Amazon.com, which cater mainly to smaller businesses. (Note— Amazon is a recommendation of Stock Pickers Digest, our newsletter…