Cisco has had a good quarter, correction, a bloody good quarter, with Q2 net income 40 per cent up on last year to $1.9bn and sales up 20 per cent to $8.4bn. Scientific Atlanta, bought in fiscal Q3 last year, brought in net sales of $639m in this quarter ended January 27.

The networking equipment maker looks like it has a license to print money, ending the quarter with cash and cash equivalents and investments of $20.7bn, against $17.8bn the previous quarter. Does no-one else get the feeling that Cisco is maybe gouging the customers?

In Q2 it bought and retired $3.3bn worth of its own shares. It has plenty of wriggle-room to buy back more stock, if it so chooses, and plenty of oppportunities to overpay for networking start-ups and more mature businesses in complementary areas.

Cisco chief John Chambers today forecast Q3 revenue growth - sans Scientific Atlanta - of 15-17 per cent. ®

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