interesting article speculating on what the announcement could be from Cisco. 

https://www.investors.com/news/technology/cisco-stock-cisco-sell-semiconductors-broadcom/

Network gear giant Cisco Systems (CSCO) may announce a shift in its business model to sell semiconductors at a "Future of the Internet" event this week, a major move that could boost Cisco stock, says one analyst.

Raymond James analyst Simon Leopold says Cisco would target customers such as Amazon.com(AMZN), Alphabet's (GOOGL) Google, Facebook (FB) and Microsoft (MSFT). Those big technology companies require high performing chips for their internet data centers.

Meanwhile, such an announcement poses problems for Broadcom (AVGO), Arista Networks (ANET) and Juniper Networks (JNPR), he adds.

Leopold points out Cisco's strategy took shape when it acquired Israeli chip designer Leaba Semiconductor for $320 million in 2016. In July, Cisco bought Acacia Communications for $2.6 billion in cash. Earlier, it bought optics device maker Luxtera for $660 million. Until now, Cisco mostly has used Leaba chips for in-company tasks and has yet to market semiconductors externally.

Leopold says Cisco has an opening to charge into the chip market because companies like Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft are concerned about the market clout of Broadcom. He speculated Cisco initially may sell a "network processor, routing chip or switching ASIC." ASICs are application-specific integrated circuits — essentially custom chips for a particular task.

Cisco Stock: Semiconductor Play Thwarts Broadcom?

"We think Cisco aspires to address operators' concerns about Broadcom securing too much market power," Leopold said in a recent note to clients.

Broadcom's customers include Arista, a rival of Cisco. Arista's biggest customers, in turn, include Microsoft and Facebook.

Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Facebook would be interested in buying Cisco chips, Leopold said, so they can be built into "white box" network gear. Asian manufacturers are the biggest providers of white-box hardware.

"If we are right, Cisco's efforts may bode negatively for Arista and Juniper," Leopold added. "We suspect web scale operators hope to employ Cisco's chips to expand white box efforts. Arista typically derives nearly 30% of sales from web scale customers and Juniper typically obtains 20% to 25% of sales from this vertical."