From gespejo@cisco.com Fri Apr 1 00:01 PST 1994
Date: Fri, 1 Apr 1994 00:00:00 -0800
Message-Id: <1994040100.AABBCCDD@heybob.cisco.com>
From: Gina Espejo <gespejo@cisco.com>
To: everyone-not-at-cisco:;@cisco.com
Subject: Cisco Acquires Sears & Roebuck

Company contact:                        Agency contacts:


Randall Sutherland                      William Orrange
Cisco Systems, Inc.                     Janis Ulevich
(415) 555-8847                          Ulevich & Orrange, Inc.
                                        (415) 555-1590
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


CISCO ACQUIRES SEARS AND ROEBUCK
CISCO TO SHIP NEW ROUTER MODELS


        SAN JOSE, Calif., Apr. 1, 1994 -- In a surprise move, Cisco Systems
has acquired retailer Sears and Roebuck.  In an attempt to bring routers
into retail outlets, Cisco will be selling its 7000, 4000, 3000, and 2500
series routers under the Craftsman brand name.  The original Craftsman
routers models will continue to ship, and the two product lines will be
merged to provide Dual Mode Routing.
        Sears and Roebuck, the former catalog giant has been plagued
recently by financial difficulties and recently discontinued its catalog
service.  Acquisition by Cisco will provide Sears with a much needed
capital infusion, as well valuable access into the consumer data
communications market.
        "For Cisco, this purchase represents a great way for us to
eliminate the product confusion between our two companies and promote safe
routing", says John Morgridge, president of Cisco.  Eye protection will be
shipped standard with all new router models.

Dual Mode Routing: Remote Woodworking Finally Arrives
        In third quarter of 1995, the new merged models will provide Dual
Mode Routing, in which data packets can be reshaped based on the
configuration supplied by the network administrator.  A series of visually
pleasing packet shapes will be included in Cisco software for easy user
configuration.  A new wood interface is also being developed for the
router, which will accept the new twelve inch wide by one inch thick media
standard.  The new interface is expected to route 100M itty-bits per
second, which will double the capacity of existing Craftsman routers.
Cisco will be incorporating new sawdust reassembly hardware, which will
enable the router to transmit the fragmented media across data networks and
deliver the reassembled media at the remote site.  The new technology is a
breakthrough for remote woodworking applications, says Norm Abrams, Cisco
Product Manager of Fiber Internetworking.

        Sears and Roebuck, Inc., is a major Chicago-based retailer, with a
large chain of department stores, specializing in family apparel,
hardware, and financial services.  In the United States, Sears is listed on
the New York Stock Exchange under the trading symbol S.

        Cisco Systems, Inc., is the leading worldwide supplier of
high-performance, multimedia and multiprotocol internetworking
products, including routers, bridges, workgroup systems,
internetwork servers, and router management software.  Cisco
technology is used to build enterprise-wide networks linking an
unlimited number of geographically dispersed LANs, WANs and IBM
SNA networks.  In the United States, Cisco is traded over the
counter under the NASDAQ symbol CSCO.


                                ###

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