By Fred Knight I've known Charlie Giancarlo since the early '90s, when he was with ATM pioneer Adaptive Corporation and then at Kalpana, the company that brought Ethernet Switching to the marketplace. So, I'm pretty sure that Sheila McGee-Smith is right in her post earlier today that Charlie didn't come to his decision overnight; her conclusion that the recently announced reorg of the Cisco organization was in response to Charlie's plans to leave rings true.
By Fred Knight I've known Charlie Giancarlo since the early '90s, when he was with ATM pioneer Adaptive Corporation and then at Kalpana, the company that brought Ethernet Switching to the marketplace. So, I'm pretty sure that Sheila McGee-Smith is right in her post earlier today that Charlie didn't come to his decision overnight; her conclusion that the recently announced reorg of the Cisco organization was in response to Charlie's plans to leave rings true.While losing an exec of Charlie's skill and stature isn't good for any company, it's not likely to hurt Cisco, at least not in the short run. There's a plan in place, more importantly, Cisco has a team of people in place to keep things moving forward.
So, the more immediate question in my mind is the impact of Giancarlo's move on Avaya, of which Silver Lake is the major owner.
The restructuring shoe has been waiting to drop at Avaya ever since the ownership changed last fall. With Giancarlo taking the reins at Silver Lake, a whole new dynamic comes into play: Charlie knows Avaya's business inside and out; he cut his teeth at Bell Labs before leaving to make his reputation and his fortune elsewhere. So Avaya's new boss is both incredibly knowledgeable about Avaya's markets and he understands the company's DNA; equally if not more importantly, he has spent most of the past two decades beating the tar out of Avaya and the other Bell descendents in the marketplace.
Some have speculated that Charlie left Cisco because he knew that invitations to John Chambers' retirement party wouldn't be mailed for a long time to come, and so the gig at Silver Lake gives him is great place to chill, watch and be available for the CEO job that he wants and deserves.
Another line of thinking is that while he may have left Cisco because Chambers isn't going anywhere any time soon, Charlie is actually eager for the opportunity to reshape Avaya for the 21st century, a time when Avaya faces a fundamentally different competitive climate -- its incumbency is shrinking. As Eric Krapf blogged yesterday, Cisco has overtaken Avaya as the number-one in shipment sales, and now both Cisco and Avaya face the threat of Microsoft and IBM in the enterprise communications space. Given the new competitive realities, Giancarlo's unique combination of smarts and experience will be invaluable to Avaya as it moves through these uncharted waters.
Knowing Charlie, I wish him luck. Knowing Avaya, he's going to need it.
