Earlier defending Cisco Chambers had stated that “I think you're going to find we are very tough versus Huawei.” “Not just in coming into our home turf, but watch how we did in China versus what Huawei did in China. … I think you'll see us very confident in how to compete against them. They'll be a good, tough competitor. They’ve got a lot of weakness, and we're going to make [those weaknesses] very plain to our customers.”

However Cisco's CEO Chambers has also repeatedly called Huawei its strongest rival in the enterprise market and promised that they will compete aggressively.

Interestingly, in the year 2003, Cisco sued Huawei for allegedly infringing on some of its patents. Huawei removed the contested parts and the case was dropped.

Rob Lloyd Cisco's executive vice president sarcastically stated that Huawei was still imitating and not innovating, he also pointed out that their security had some flaws and issues.

"We clearly know that our customers view innovation from Cisco and they don't see the same from Huawei. We would clearly say that imitation isn't innovation," Lloyd said on the company's earnings call this past Tuesday.

"The privacy of information, how data is protected is forefront in our customers' mind in a cloud centric world. That's not the forte of Huawei," Lloyd also said.


To which Roese commented "If they want to declare us public enemy No 1 and their biggest threat, I am glad to take that compliment." Roese said.