During Cisco's fiscal year 2004, significant customer wins and technological innovations occurred across all customer segments: Enterprise, Commercial (small- and medium-sized businesses), Service Provider and Consumer (networking for small office/home office). Cisco announced a range of new partnerships, joint efforts and agreements, as well as celebrated technology innovations in routing, switching, wireless, security, storage networking and IP Communications. One of Cisco's most significant innovations of the year was the introduction of the Cisco Carrier Routing System (CRS-1), which was also recognized in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's highest capacity Internet router.

• In LAN switching, Cisco announced new products and capabilities for its Catalyst Intelligent Switching portfolio. Also, the Cisco Catalyst family of switches was expanded with new fixed configuration solutions for Gigabit Ethernet, new line cards and features on the Cisco Catalyst 6500.
• Cisco announced significant product additions and enhancements to its metro Ethernet switching portfolio, aimed at helping service providers deliver scaleable, profitable and differentiated metro Ethernet services to their enterprise business customers. Metro Ethernet capabilities were also added to the Catalyst 4000 family.
• In the Internet routing arena, Cisco unveiled one of the company's most significant routing innovations in a decade, the Cisco Carrier Routing System (CRS-1), which was also recognized in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's highest capacity Internet router capable of handling 92 terabits of data and offering the industry's first 40 Gbps (OC768) interface. Cisco also announced significant enhancements across the company's core and edge routing portfolio, including the new Cisco 12800 Series router and additions to Cisco 7600 Series.
• Continuing to reach major milestones in IP Communications, Cisco shipped its three millionth Internet Protocol (IP) telephone to Adobe. Boeing Company selected Cisco IP communications for its global enterprise, which includes more than 150,000 employees in 48 states and 70 countries. Cisco introduced a new Video Telephony (VT) Advantage solution, an IP-based video telephony system that allows users to place or receive calls on their Cisco IP phones and create an instant face-to-face video call. Cisco also introduced a new color IP Phone, which includes a high resolution touch screen and additional features to expand the company's broad line of IP Communications devices.
• Cisco expanded its security systems product portfolio, including additions to its threat defense and secure connectivity products and services for networked businesses. As part of its strategy to develop Self Defending Networks, Cisco teamed with Network Associates, Symantec, and Trend Micro to launch the Cisco Network Admission Control program. Cisco also announced plans with IBM to integrate technologies and products to effectively protect enterprise customers from threats such as worms and viruses.
• In the wireless space, Cisco introduced the Cisco Aironet 1200 and 1100 Series IEEE 802.11g Access Points for high performance, secure, manageable and flexible wireless local-area networks. Cisco also set a new standard for enterprise-class wireless LANs with the introduction of the Wireless LAN Services Module for the Cisco Catalyst® 6500 Series.
• In storage area networking, Cisco introduced the Cisco MDS 9100 series of Multilayer Intelligent fabric switches, and additional storage networking capabilities for the Cisco MDS 9000 Family of Multilayer Intelligent directors and fabric switches; and Cisco and IBM introduced a solution to help customers further drive down the costs and complexity of managing data with flexible, storage area networking options to improve storage resource utilization.
• In the optical market, Cisco announced the SL-Series interface for the Cisco ONS 15454 Multiservice Provisioning Platform which helps to enable the delivery of Fibre Channel-based storage-area-network (SAN)-extension services over Synchronous Optical Network/Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SONET/SDH) networks.
• In the consumer/home networking segment, Linksys announced several new home entertainment products, including a Wireless Guard product which allows users to listen to digital music and access thousands of global Internet radio stations on their living room stereos; a multimedia DVD player with Wireless-G Media Link, a Wireless-B Internet video camera, and wireless game adapters. For consumers and small businesses, Linksys announced a wireless security service that foils hackers and stops unauthorized entry onto networks, a VPN Router, a 120GB Ethernet network storage device, a new family of compact desktop unmanaged gigabit switches, and a Wireless-G VPN broadband router ideal for very small business environments with mobile employees.
• In the Service Provider segment, Ericsson and Cisco formed a strategic alliance to offer joint solutions for the wireline communications market.. Other noteworthy service provider-related announcements include the adoption of Cisco's Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) technology by more than 200 customers worldwide. Significant customer wins include relationships with Bell Canada, Verizon Communications, China Telecom, India's Dishnet and China Netcom Group, each of whom will deploy Cisco 12000 Series Routers to deliver converged services across their service networks. Cisco and T-Mobile are collaborating to accelerate the development and introduction of wireless LAN hotspots for business use across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
• In the Commercial segment, Cisco and Microsoft are collaborating on solution development, marketing and channel programs to help accelerate small and medium-sized business customer and channel partner success. Cisco also expanded its Full Service Branch initiative with 10 new solution blueprints for small offices and branch locations.
• Cisco continues to bolster its relationships with its partners by introducing new global technical support services programs. Cisco also launched a channel program to grow its leadership position in the commercial market, launched the Partner Technical Support Services Portfolio in twelve new countries, and unveiled partner specializations to address customer demand for storage networking solutions.

More Information
To read the announcements for the technology innovations and customer wins, visit News@Cisco's news release archive.