Cisco's top cloud expert and youngest board director resigns

With the resignation of its youngest board director, cloud expert Marc Benioff, Cisco's future success in the cloud now appears far from certain.

New York City:   Tue, 9/16/14 - 5:15pm    View comments
 

Update 10/9/2014 - 7:15pm

Leaked traffic figures show Cisco's cloud growth has become nonexistent
 

As the only Cisco Board Director who truly understood the Cloud, the resignation of Marc Benioff leaves Cisco's Board of Directors without an effective counterbalance to keep Cisco CEO John Chambers in check on all things cloud.

I mean, Cisco's Board needs strong independent board members whose expertise can guide Cisco into the future and without Benioff on its Board, Cisco lacks at the Board Director level, both the knowledge and expertise necessary to achieve outstanding cloud success.

Marc Benioff was appointed to Cisco's Board on August 2, 2012 when Cisco's adjusted stock price closed at $14.81 per share.

During Benioff's quick tenure as a Cisco director, Cisco's stock price soared +70%.

Meanwhile during that exact same timeframe, the adjusted stock price of SalesForce.Com soared +90%.

Personally, I see a correlation between the stock prices of Cisco and SalesForce.Com.

Without cloud expert Marc Benioff on Cisco's Board of Directors, the future appreciation of Cisco's stock price becomes far from certain:

SalesForce.Com (CRM) vs. Cisco (CSCO) stock price comparison chart

Source: Yahoo! Finance

In my opinion, the resignation of a vibrant Cisco Board Director such as Marc Benioff can mean only one thing:

Cisco Board Chairman John Chambers can NOT tolerate a strong independent board member like Marc Benioff.
 

Related documents:

Cisco CEO John Chambers Statement on Marc Benioff

Cisco Appoints Marc Benioff To Board Of Directors

Related stories:

Rumor Cisco cloud web security (ScanSafe) going end-of-life (EOL) imminently

Leaked traffic figures show Cisco's cloud growth has become nonexistent
 

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