Cisco has been in business for more than 20 years and is emerging as a security powerhouse to be reckoned with, especially as security merges more with network operations in the enterprise.

"Cisco has been benefiting from recent market changes," says Jon Oltsik, a senior analyst with market research firm Enterprise Strategy Group. "The networking group is having a larger say in the purchase of security products, and that has translated into more success with its security products."

There may not be better evidence of Cisco's emergence than readers giving its PIX appliance series the gold medal in the network firewall category, a narrow victory over standby Check Point's FireWall-1.