Cisco News -- $1.8 billion revenues from their Web site this year!

[Joe Thomas <jthomas@webwonderinc.com>]

Some news that might have moved the stock price up... From
http://www.techweb.com/wire/news/1206cisco.html

Dec 09, 1996 Cisco To Generate Nearly $1.8 Billion Online
(12/06/96; 12:50 p.m. EST)
By John Evan Frook, CommunicationsWeek

Cisco, the world's leading supplier of internetworking gear, is rapidly
becoming the world's leading electronic merchant.

Cisco Connection Online (CCO), the company's business-to-business mall,
has racked up $75 million in sales since it went online with an advanced
purchasing system less than five months ago, Communications Week
Interactive has learned. The company is so bullish on the results to
date that it is predicting the Web site will generate nearly $1.8
billion in revenue -- in its current fiscal year.

"Our goal as a company is to be processing 30 percent of our business
through the World Wide Web by the end of our fiscal fourth quarter [in
July 1997]," said Chris Sinton, director of CCO. Based on the company's
current run rate, that would be an astonishing $1.77 billion. At present
over 8,000 customers have registered to purchase products through
Cisco's Web site. 

Optimism over Cisco's commerce site -- which can be used to configure
and purchase routers with six-figure pricetags -- has been buoyed by
customer reports that online ordering is more efficient and orders are
received more accurately than through traditional sales methods. 

A strking case in point: The site played a key role in a decision
earlier this year by Cellular One to increase purchases of Cisco routers
and hubs 13, according to Charles Miano, a purchasing agent for the
mobile phone carrier's IS and technical service department. Virtually
all of Cellular One's new router and hub purchases are Cisco products,
Miano said. The site's up-to-the-minute pricing, quicker delivery and
remote access to order status are among the chief benefits.

"We get immediate results in terms of knowing about compatability and
workability," Miano said. "It breaks down many communications barriers.
Before, when we would send things to our account manager or customer
service rep, it could take two to five days to get an answer."

Cisco customers have also shown a willingness to purchase its most
costly, sophisticated products via the Web. Jamie Burton, account
manager at integrator Data Systems West, Woodland Hills, Calif., has
purchased two Cisco 7513 backbone routers, units that can cost $200,000
apiece; a $120,000 Cisco 7507 backbone router; and dozens of Catalyst
5000 switches at $35,000 to $40,000 apiece. In total, that's more than
$1 million by a single customer.

These figures clearly establish the router and switch maker as the top
revenue generator on the Web Friday. Market researcher International
Data Corp. predicts sales on the Internet will reach $5.4 billion in
1996, but no other single site brings in as much as $75 million in
sales.

"What Cisco has done is amazing. It is the biggest number we've heard,''
said Ted Julian, Internet research manager for IDC, Framingham, Mass.