Network equipment manufacturer Cisco sparked a short burst of technology industry optimism in early November, when it released healthy figures for the first quarter of its fiscal 2003.

The company chalked up revenues of $4.8 billion for the three months ending 26 October 2002, up 9% on the same period last year. Net income almost tripled to $618 million, compared to the year-ago quarter.

But according to Barry Jaruzelski, a partner with management consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, Cisco is making the best of a less-than-rosy marketplace. Cisco claims its own growth is due to the fact that it has limited exposure to the suffering telecommunications industry, as 80% of sales came from enterprise data network customers.

“Their performance in the networking space is analogous to what Dell is doing in personal computers,” says Jaruzelski. “They are taking share more rapidly in the downturn than they were taking in the upturn.”