Category: cisco equipment

Cisco Systems has designed a monitoring system to help track the Chinese government and ultimately eliminate the members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, according to a lawsuit filed against the group of network equipment maker.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San José, is based on Cisco supplies and helped maintain a surveillance system known as the “Golden Shield” that allowed the Chinese government to monitor and censor the Internet group activities. As a result of Cisco technology, Falun Gong members suffered illegal detention, torture and homicide, according to the lawsuit, which was filed on behalf of the religious group by Washington, DC, Human Rights Law Foundation.

The 52-page lawsuit names President and CEO, John Chambers, and two other executives as defendants and seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages and to prohibit illegal activity Cisco more.

A Cisco spokesman said there was “no basis” for the allegations in the complaint and that the company intended to defend the lawsuit “vigorously.”

“Cisco does not operate networks in China or elsewhere, or Cisco customize our products in ways that facilitate censorship or repression,” the representative said in a statement, adding that the company sells the same equipment in China that is sold in other nations in accordance with the regulations of the United States government.

Falun Gong is described in the claim as a peaceful religious movement of some 70 million to 100 million followers, founded in 1992 and uses the Internet as their main point of assembly for religious activities. However, the Chinese government began to see the group as a political threat and developed a plan to purge the Falun Gong from the country in 1999, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, alleges that Golden Shield – is described in marketing materials as Policenet Cisco – resulted in the arrest of up to 5,000 members of Falun Gong. Cisco “compete aggressively” for contracts to design the system’s Golden Shield “with full knowledge that was to be used for the suppression of Falun Gong religion,” according to demand.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of 11 plaintiffs who are described as suffering torture and sometimes death at the hands of the Chinese government. The claim that the plaintiffs are eight anonymously to prevent “further abuse and retaliation human rights.” Three applicants are identified by name: Ivy Him, Canada; Guifu Liu, New York State, and Carlos Lee, an American citizen who traveled to China in 2003 and was arrested at the airport and tortured until his release 2006.

A Cisco engineer once sued his former employer, alleging that monopolized the business of maintenance and repair of Cisco, has been accused by U.S. authorities piracy.

Peter Alfred-Adekeye, who quit Cisco in 2005 to form two companies, network support, has been charged with 97 counts of intentionally accessing a protected computer without authorization for purposes of commercial advantage, according to an order arrest. He faces 10 years in prison and the U.S. a $ 250,000 fine if convicted of the charges.

Alfred-Adekeye was stopped abruptly by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Vancouver on May 20, 2010, while a statement to lawyers for Cisco in its civil case. A Nigerian citizen and resident of Zurich, Alfred-Adekeye only in town for a few days for the deposit, but the U.S. Justice Departmentalerted the Canadian authorities, telling them to look at Wedgewood Hotel Vancouver.

U.S. Justice Department charged Alfred-Adekeye ID use a Cisco employee username and password to download software and access to restricted website of Cisco, according to the Canadian arrest warrant issued in the case.

The case is still under seal as U.S. authorities seek extradition of Alfredo Adekeye. His arrest had been reported until this week when the Vancouver media reported his extradition hearing. Alfred-Adekeye order U.S. arrest was issued on May 19, 2010 – the day after he began his statement in Canada – U.S. by Magistrate Judge Howard Lloyd in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, according to the Order of Canada.

The handsome Alfred-Adekeye has founded two nonprofit effort aimed at promoting entrepreneurship – Road to the Entrepreneurial Leadership and the African Network – and is also the head of two new companies. In one of his websites that he describes as “a successful entrepreneur and innovative British royal African descent.”

One company of Alfred-Adekeye, Multivan, Cisco sued in December 2008, accusing the company of monopolizing the business of maintenance and repair company Cisco. Cisco forced the owners of the arts, such as routers, switches and firewalls to buy SMARTnet service contracts in order to get regular software updates and bug fixes, Multivan said. By providing updates and bug fixes SMARTnet customers only and not to third parties, Cisco banned independent companies service your equipment, Multivan course.

SMARTnet service is a hot topic with some customers, who feel that Cisco must provide solutions based on software fixes and updates for free as Microsoft or Apple do.

Neither Alfred nor Multivan Adekeye could be immediately reached for comment Tuesday, but according to the Vancouver Sun, his lawyer claimed in court Monday that Cisco and the U.S. Department of justice agreed to arrest him during his deposition.

In an email, a Cisco spokeswoman, said Tuesday: “We strongly disagree with most of the content in [Vancouver Sun] article,” adding that “extradition is a matter between the two governments.”

After Multivan sued Cisco, the networking giant filed counterclaims against Multivan, Alfred Adekeye and Pingsta, another company founded by Alfred-Adekeye. Multivan provides service and support for networking gear from multiple vendors. Pingsta itself as an online platform for companies to hire engineers and gain experience in cloud-based networks on a pay-per-use basis.

The companies settled their civil suit in July 2010, just months after the arrest of Alfredo Adekeye. Both sides dropped their claims and businesses pay their own legal costs.

Used Cisco Equipment

The first business cuts Cisco Systems have announced, and the Flip video camera is one of the first things to go.

Cisco said Tuesday it will leave parts of the business of consumer electronics, and that strategically realigns its business to focus on five main areas: routing, switching and services, collaboration, architectures, and video. One of the first victims of this business plan was the Flip Video, Pure Digital Cisco bought two years ago for U.S. $ 590 million.

Cisco said in a press release that “support existing customers FlipShare and is associated with a transition plan.” But the company will stop selling the small video camera. Instead, Cisco plans to refocus its consumer business in home networking technologies such as Linksys, Cisco and integrate Umi home video conferencing product in their business offering telepresence.

“We are making key moves, aimed at aligning their operations to support our strategy of network-centric platform,” said CEO John Chambers said in a statement. “As we move forward, our consumer efforts will focus on how we help our enterprise customers and service providers to optimize and expand their offerings to consumers and help ensure network capacity to meet the offerings.”

Cisco’s decision to shutter the Flip video company should not be a surprise. The company bought Pure Digital video cameras and high definition is becoming standard on mobile devices. Today, smart phones like the iPhone, offers high-definition video and ease the burden of video directly to social networking sites like Facebook and YouTube.

Last week, Salas posted a blog on the internal Web site the company acknowledges that the company has “disappointed and confused our investors to our employees.” And he promised to get back on track Cisco. Salas said that “we will take bold steps and we will take tough decisions.”

The Flip video business is not the only leader who is on site. Cisco also said it will close the Eos media business solutions and the use of technology in other parts of the business. Eos’s business was directed at entertainment companies. It was a set of technologies and development platform that helped bands and record labels to create Web sites.

The head of this division, Dan Scheinman Twitter announced on Tuesday that will leave Cisco after more than a decade in the business. Previously, he led Cisco’s Scheinman and acquisitions helped the company acquire more than 40 companies, including Lynksys and Scientific Atlantic.

In his tweet Scheinman Eos said it had achieved technically, but was still years away from economic success.

Cisco Systems Inc ditch their division Flip video camera, and that revisions to its troubled consumer business, following the recent admission of chief John Chambers’ that the company had lost its way.

The decision comes less than a week after Chambers said he had to make some “difficult decisions” on spending cuts in some product areas.

The company plans to cut 550 jobs from its workforce of 73,000 and will take a pretax charge of approximately $ 300 million for the review. The charge is expected to be recognized in the third and fourth quarters of fiscal 2011.

Tuesday’s news seems to be the first movement of Chambers to the reorganization of the company. Among the measures, Cisco plans to combine your home Umi dull teleconference service with its popular business Telepresence. The company also will change the way it manufactures its line of Linksys network equipment.
“Cisco has been sliding for a long time now. Hopefully you can do the boat,” said Fred Hickey, editor of the newsletter high tech strategist.

He said Cisco has been more affected than other firms during the economic downturn, because it has lost its focus on its business of selling networking equipment at a time when it faces increasing competition from rivals such as Hewlett-Packard Co, Juniper Networks, Huawei and ZTE Corp. of China

Analysts were encouraged by changes on Tuesday, adding that Cisco expects to sell more products outside their business of selling routers and switches for the industries of technology and telecommunications.

“This is a step in the concentration of attention from Cisco in the enterprise,” said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer of Solaris Group. “This was faster than we expected. But perhaps Cisco has been studying this for some time.”
Cisco shares fell 9 cents to $ 17.38 on Nasdaq. The shares have lost a third of its value last year. It includes slides, Cisco has lost a little more than half its value since early 2001, when it was almost $ 40 per share.

Consumer distraction

Analysts have been particularly critical of the manner in which Cisco has made its consumer division, saying that strays too far from the main business of the company.

Evercore analyst Alkesh Shah he expects Cisco to make other changes to its portfolio of technology products far, which includes Scientific Atlanta cable boxes and a new line of computer servers.

“This is just the beginning of a series of possible changes and the series of changes can reduce costs and increase margins,” said Shah.

The networking giant bought the business of Pure Digital Flip for $ 590 million in 2009, part of a wave of acquisitions that strengthened its consumer-oriented business and includes the acquisition of cable set-top box maker Scientific-Atlanta and home router maker Linksys.

Since then it has lost its standing as a hot gadget, mainly because the mobile phone manufacturers now offer devices with similar functions built into their phones.

In February, Jonathan Kaplan, the former CEO of Pure Digital, who had headed the consumer division of Cisco, left the company.
It was unclear why Cisco decided to close Flip business – which comes with software called FlipShare that allows users to easily share videos on sites like YouTube – instead of selling.
“They announced they are closing, so that means they could not sell,” said Philip Alling, an analyst at Atlantic Equities. “It’s disappointing to not be able to generate any proceeds from the sale of the company.”

Karen Tillman Cisco spokesman declined to say why the company decided to kill the business rather than sell it.

Chambers has previously called the company to focus on five areas: routing, switches and services data center virtualization;, collaboration architectures, and video.

The first business cuts Cisco Systems have announced, and the Flip video camera is one of the first things to go.

Cisco said Tuesday it will leave parts of the business of consumer electronics, and that strategically realigns its business to focus on five main areas: routing, switching and services, collaboration, architectures, and video. One of the first victims of this business plan was the Flip Video, Pure Digital Cisco bought two years ago for U.S. $ 590 million.

Cisco said in a press release that “support existing customers FlipShare and is associated with a transition plan.” But the company will stop selling the small video camera. Instead, Cisco plans to refocus its consumer business in home networking technologies such as Linksys, Cisco and integrate Umi home video conferencing product in their business offering telepresence.

“We are making key moves, aimed at aligning their operations to support our strategy of network-centric platform,” said CEO John Chambers said in a statement. “As we move forward, our consumer efforts will focus on how we help our enterprise customers and service providers to optimize and expand their offerings to consumers and help ensure network capacity to meet the offerings.”

Cisco’s decision to shutter the Flip video company should not be a surprise. The company bought Pure Digital video cameras and high definition is becoming standard on mobile devices. Today, smart phones like the iPhone, offers high-definition video and ease the burden of video directly to social networking sites like Facebook and YouTube.

Last week, Salas posted a blog on the internal Web site the company acknowledges that the company has “disappointed and confused our investors to our employees.” And he promised to get back on track Cisco. Salas said that “we will take bold steps and we will take tough decisions.”

The Flip video business is not the only leader who is on site. Cisco also said it will close the Eos media business solutions and the use of technology in other parts of the business. Eos’s business was directed at entertainment companies. It was a set of technologies and development platform that helped bands and record labels to create Web sites.

The head of this division, Dan Scheinman Twitter announced on Tuesday that will leave Cisco after more than a decade in the business. Previously, he led Cisco’s Scheinman and acquisitions helped the company acquire more than 40 companies, including Lynksys and Scientific Atlantic.

In his tweet Scheinman Eos said it had achieved technically, but was still years away from economic success.