The Web Conferencing Blog

Some Tandberg Shareholders Reject Cisco Offer

Tandberg shareholders have rejected Cisco's $3B offer to buy the video conferencing company. It appears the shareholders are looking for a higher bid from Cisco or from another company as they strongly believe that the company can continue to operate and generate revenue as an independent company.

If the Cisco/Tandberg acqusition does not happen, I suppose Polycom could be another company Cisco looks into though Cisco is really interested in Tandberg because of the company's success in the SMB and mid-market space. (Cisco Telepresence products are better suited for large enterprises.)

Tandberg recently announed their Telepresence T1, designed for smaller companies and a target market for Cisco Telepresence.

As I have said multiple times, Video is a top initiative for John Chambers simply because Video is part of the $34B collaboration technology market that Cisco is going after.

Tandberg or Polycom? Some would say a coin toss, I lean towards Tandberg.

CEO Pay Cuts

Over the past year, CEO's pay cuts have become common place.

Here are the 10 largest by revenue.

• General Motors (reduced to $1)
• Ford Motor (reduced by 30%)
• Sears (reduced by $50K)
• FedEx (reduced by 20%)
• American Express (reduced by 10%)
• Motorola (reduced by 25%)
• Eaton (reduced by 6 weeks' worth of pay)
• Continental Airlines (reduced to $0 for Q3 and Q4 of 2008)
• EMC (reduced by 15%
• Cummins (reduced by 10%)