Most of Cisco's current product suite came via acquisitions[0]. The difference with Meraki, compared to the typical Cisco acquisition, is how independently they were allowed to operate. WebEx was a similar story. Cisco would tell you that acquisition is a core competency of theirs[1], but having worked there for 8 years (including during the WebEx and Meraki acquisitions,) I'd say their track record is far more spotty. A few successes like Meraki, a bunch of mediocre examples and a few really bad ones, like Scientific Atlanta.
0 - Even switching originally came to Cisco via a whole series of acquisitions in the 90s. You could argue -- and Stanford certainly did -- that routing was an acquisition of sorts, as well.
1 - Their M&A guy even wrote a book about it, called Doing Both, which purported to explain how Cisco achieved so many of their goals by refusing to make false "either/or" decisions. Ironically, almost every example in the book was something that Cisco is spectacularly bad at.
0 - Even switching originally came to Cisco via a whole series of acquisitions in the 90s. You could argue -- and Stanford certainly did -- that routing was an acquisition of sorts, as well.
1 - Their M&A guy even wrote a book about it, called Doing Both, which purported to explain how Cisco achieved so many of their goals by refusing to make false "either/or" decisions. Ironically, almost every example in the book was something that Cisco is spectacularly bad at.