Hi Glenn,
An opening trial slide (page 5) delivered in court during the trial of Raj Rajaratnam (the largest crackdown on hedge-fund insider trading in U.S. history according to Business Week), names Cisco Vice President - Inder Singh as an alleged conspirator who provided inside information about Cisco's potential acquisition of EMC.
The opening trial slide states that Raj Rajaratnam is alleged to have conspired to obtain inside information from Cisco Vice President - Inder Singh about Cisco's potential acquisition of EMC in July and August 2008. Interestingly, according to Singh's biography, Singh joined Cisco in July 2008 which is confirmed by a July 18, 2008 report that appeared in Light Reading.
At the time of the alleged conspiracy, Singh was reporting to the highly respected Manny Rivelo (who earned CCIE #1305), Rivelo at the time was senior vice president of operations for the Cisco Development Council and was one of its nine members.
Note: Curiously as shown in the trial slide, yet another alleged insider trading conspirator is named Surya Panditi.
Cisco announced on May 20, 2010 that it was acquiring CoreOptics and in that news release, Surya Panditi - Cisco vice president and general manager of Cisco's Service Provider Access and Transport Technology Group is quoted.
I mean, is it possible that Cisco had 2 of its Vice Presidents leaking inside information about future Cisco acquisitions?
Both Cisco Vice Presidents Inder Singh and Surya Panditi appear on a list of possible witnesses during the Raj Rajaratnam insider trading trial.
Another opening trial slide states that Raj Rajaratnam is alleged to have conspired to obtain material, nonpublic information about Cisco's acquisition of Starent Networks before it was announced on October 13, 2009. According to a March 21, 2011 Financial Times report:
"Mr. Smith speculated to the government that Mr. Rajaratnam's source may have been a Cisco employee who used to work as an analyst with Prudential."
Perhaps revealingly, Cisco Vice President - Inder Singh's biography states that he was previously employed by Prudential Securities.
Note: Cisco has not responded to a request to confirm whether its 2 Vice Presidents - Inder Singh and Surya Panditi are currently employed by Cisco Systems.
Sincerely,
Brad Reese
Cisco announced today, its intent to acquire NewScale, a small, but well respected automation software vendor. The financial terms were not disclosed, but it is a small deal in terms of money spent. It is big in the sense that Cisco needed the kind of capabilities offered by NewScale, and NewScale has proven to be one of the most innovative and visible players in that market segment.
The market segment in question is what has been described as “the tip of the iceberg” for the advanced automation suites needed to create and operate cloud computing services. The “tip” refers to the part of the overall suite that is exposed to customers, while the majority of the “magic” of cloud automation is hidden from view – as it should be. The main capabilities offered by NewScale deal with building and managing the service catalog and providing a self-service front end that allows cloud consumers to request their own services based on this catalog of available services. Forrester has been bullish on these capabilities because they are the customer-facing side of cloud – the most important aspect – whereas most of the cloud focus has been directed at the “back end” technologies such as virtual server deployment and workload migration. These are certainly important, but a cloud is not a cloud unless the consumers of those services can trigger their deployment on their own. This is the true power of NewScale, one of the best in this sub-segment.
We fully expected someone to acquire NewScale sooner rather than later and Cisco is a good home for it. Cisco has been quietly building its own cloud automation competency, acquiring Tidal Software for process automation, LineSider and Pari Networks for network automation, and now NewScale. We applaud all of these moves, but Cisco must get more aggressive with its acquisitions and clarify its vision for automation. As it builds this portfolio, it also competes with itself via a partnership with BMC Software and its VCE joint venture with EMC and VMware. It was wise to hedge its bets with multiple options during its exploratory stages, but as the market for cloud computing and automation continues to evolve, Cisco needs a consistent strategy around which all Cisco employees, customers, and partners can rally. In its bigger battles with the likes of Dell, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, and Oracle, this cohesive strategy is critical.
In any of Cisco’s three strategic directions for automation, NewScale is a great asset.
