Topic: How To Invest

Dear Pat: I very much appreciate your advice. I would very much appreciate your advice with regard to Cisco. Thank you.

Article Excerpt

Cisco Systems Inc., $17.44, symbol CSCO on Nasdaq (Shares outstanding: 5.5 billion; Market cap: $96.4 billion; www.cisco.com), is a leading maker of hardware and software that links and manages computer networks. The company’s hardware includes routers, local-area network (LAN) and asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) switches, and dial-up access servers. Cisco’s Internet Operating System (IOS) software ties these products together, delivers network services (which interconnect and move information between networks) and lets programs run on networks. Cisco gets about 45% of its revenue from overseas customers. The company has expanded into consumer products in the past few years. It sells home routers and networking products under the Linksys brand, and digital video cameras under the Flip brand. Consumer products account for less than 5% of Cisco’s sales. In its 2011 second quarter, which ended January 29, 2011, Cisco’s revenue rose 6.0%, to $10.4 billion from $9.8 billion a year earlier. That’s mainly because an of an 18% jump in service revenue…