Apple hires 20 to 25 laid off Cisco engineers

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
In a report looking a the competitive upheaval affecting Cisco and Juniper Networks, Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry notes that Apple has already snatched up 20 to 25 of the engineers Cisco has recently laid off.



Chowdhry reports that Aruba, HP and Huawei are putting intense competitive pressure on Cisco and Juniper by offering much cheaper pricing on their own networking gear and adding in free support, services and lifetime warranties.



Additionally, the overall market for network switches supporting Cisco and Juniper sales is also being targeted by the release of VMware VSphere 5.0, which delivers a new usability in network virtualization that is "starting to disrupt" sales of physical switches, Chowdhry states.



As a result of cooling sales, Juniper has now had a hiring freeze in place for the last three months, while Cisco has offered 5,800 employees early retirement, 2,100 of which have accepted the severance deal.



Cisco layoffs "are probably actually 3,000 to 4,000 more than they announced," Chowdhry wrote in the note, indicating that "about 20 to 25 of these engineers have already found jobs at Apple."



Apple has been enjoying record sales of its hardware, including 20.34 million iPhones, 9.25 million iPads and 3.95 million Macs in the most recent quarter. The company has been working hard to hire qualified candidates in a highly competitive business climate where companies like Dropbox, Facebook, Google, OpenX and Twitter are all growing dramatically and also in need of engineers.



Apple currently has workers spread around its Cupertino campus in a variety of locations, and seeks to build a new 3.1 million square foot corporate headquarters complex capable of housing 12,000 workers, including a million square feet of offices contained within a futuristic ring evoking a spaceship design.



Comments

  • Reply 1 of 18
    philboogiephilboogie Posts: 7,675member
    The landscape is changing. Good of Apple to try to be the first to hire the best. For the employees Apple's HQ is only 14 miles away. According to Google that is. Which doesn't say a lot when looking at instruction 42 when driving from Japan to China - LOL
  • Reply 2 of 18
    paulmjohnsonpaulmjohnson Posts: 1,380member
    Wow, Apple are hiring engineers in the Bay Area - that's news!
  • Reply 3 of 18
    r00fusr00fus Posts: 245member
    <j/k>



    For those engineers hired by Apple: congrats, and hope the commute is shorter for you.



    For the thousands of layed-off talent in the bay area, it's still a sucky hiring market out there.
  • Reply 4 of 18
    msuberlymsuberly Posts: 234member
    Slow news day? Oh wait, the DOW was down 634 and AAPL was down $20.
  • Reply 5 of 18
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    What does Apple need 12,000 for? Besides retail. That seems like a lot of people.
  • Reply 6 of 18
    cvaldes1831cvaldes1831 Posts: 1,832member
    Actually, 12,000 people at the corporate HQ doesn't sound like enough however Apple runs very very lean on the HR side of things.



    Apple's revenue-per-employee is astronomical. Just compare the number of employees at HP, Cisco, Oracle, etc. Apple's Cupertino workforce is heavily skewed to engineering. Unlike many other large high-tech firms, Apple does not have large engineering campuses away from corporate.



    Apple probably has 30,000 retail employees, but apart from a few corporate retail folks, there's really nobody in Cupertino (well except the Vallco store).



    Apple certainly doesn't have 12,000 employees in Cupertino right now. My guess is that they have about 8,000 in various buildings (at 1 Infinite Loop and other satellite campuses) and while the new doughnut-shaped building can hold 12,000 it will take several years for them to fill that facility.
  • Reply 7 of 18
    Apple must be preparing for their assault on Cisco.... The new iSwitch running iOS 5... Now you can check your Facebook status and purchase music with iTunes from the command line....
  • Reply 8 of 18
    aaarrrggghaaarrrgggh Posts: 1,609member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by msuberly View Post


    Slow news day? Oh wait, the DOW was down 634 and AAPL was down $20.



    Yeah... I was expecting something more meaningful from AI today... whoo hoo... 20-25 people.
  • Reply 9 of 18
    satcomersatcomer Posts: 130member
    Maybe this will bring better support for the built-in Cisco VPN system.
  • Reply 10 of 18
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by msuberly View Post


    Slow news day? Oh wait, the DOW was down 634 and AAPL was down $20.



    Hell of a buying opportunity for AAPL IMHO
  • Reply 11 of 18
    maguromaguro Posts: 65member
    "In a report looking a the competitive"



    Wow, a typo only five words in. Getting worse and worse.
  • Reply 12 of 18
    I hope they beef up Airport Extreme & Time Capsule!



    The last revision of these devices did not see drastic improvement.
  • Reply 13 of 18
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Maguro View Post


    "In a report looking a the competitive"



    Wow, a typo only five words in. Getting worse and worse.



    Give them a break, it is probably a technical guy. You know technical guys can't spell!
  • Reply 14 of 18
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Ireland View Post


    What does Apple need 12,000 for? Besides retail. That seems like a lot of people.



    80% of them work on Research & Development! The other 20% are artists!



    Don't forget Apple is the second largest company in the World based on Market Capitalization and they sell products in over 100 countries.



    With today's stock market crash Exxon Mobile, the largest company, is only worth 14 Billion more than Apple!
  • Reply 15 of 18
    Perhaps one of them will take the risk and suggest that wireless APs can have screw in antennas
  • Reply 16 of 18
    mdriftmeyermdriftmeyer Posts: 7,503member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Ireland View Post


    What does Apple need 12,000 for? Besides retail. That seems like a lot of people.



    Not really. They would have over 3,000 in various Engineering departments alone. You've got Material Science, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Chemistry, Industrial Design, etc., let alone Software.
  • Reply 17 of 18
    lukeilukei Posts: 379member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Ireland View Post


    What does Apple need 12,000 for? Besides retail. That seems like a lot of people.



    I guess a better question is what do DropBox need 500+ people for!
  • Reply 18 of 18
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by lukei View Post


    I guess a better question is what do DropBox need 500+ people for!



    To read people's saved contents.
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