Cross-dressing

(By Richard Holway 6.00pm 16th March 09) If there is one trend that seems to be gathering speed right now it’s everyone trying to muscle in on everyone else’s business. A few years ago, Apple made PCs and iPods – now they are the biggest smartphone supplier in the world. Conversely last year you would have answered the “What does Nokia do?” with the obvious “make mobile phones” answer. Now, it is heavily rumoured, Nokia is to enter the Laptop/Netbook market.

Today you can add another company to the cross-dressing brigade. Cisco has announced that it is to sell servers to data centres. Cisco has brought together an impressive array of partners for its ‘Unified Computing System’ – including EMC, Intel, Microsoft, BMC Software and Accenture. It puts Cisco head-to-head with IBM and HP – companies which Cisco also partners with in other areas.