Chambers: U.S. in a “show me” economy

LAS VEGAS--

Cisco President and CEO John Chambers was decidedly upbeat during his keynote address this week, obviously buoyed by his company’s positive quarterly earnings results announced on Tuesday. He said that while he wasn’ predicting an economic turnaround just yet, he is seeing for the first time in quite awhile "some positive signals" after closely monitoring manufacturing activity in the U.S., UK, and Germany.

Chambers added that the U.S. currently is in a "show me" economy and companies won't begin to increase their capital expense spending until their CEOs start to see their own revenues increase. He also told N + I attendees they needed to embrace the concept of the “networked virtual organization,” or “office anywhere” if they wanted to see productivity growth rates rise above the current 1%. (He thinks 3% is a no-brainer and 5%-10% is doable.) Chambers added that the key to the networked virtual organization is the convergence of voice, data and video on the same network. "The Internet is about empowerment, but it only works if you know where you're going and you have access to the data you need to get there," he said.

--Glenn Bischoff, Senior Writer