A Wall Street analyst thinks Cisco is about to introduce a new processor chip, in a move that could be bad news for Broadcom, Juniper and Arista

• Cisco is making a big announcement on Wednesday this week, at an event led by CEO Chuck Robbins called "Future of the Internet."
• Raymond James analyst Simon Leopold speculates that the tech giant is rolling out a new processor in a bid to expand its presence in the data center market.
• Leopold based his speculation on Cisco's $380 million acquisition of a communications chip company in 2016.
• If true, the move could pose a threat to longtime Cisco rivals Juniper and Arista, and to chip giant Broadcom.
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Cisco has scheduled an event for Wednesday called "Future of the Internet," where CEO Chuck Robbins himself is expected to unveil a new product.

A Wall Street analyst has an idea what it could be: a new chip.

Raymond James analyst Simon Leopold said the Silicon Valley giant, known primarily for selling equipment used to connect a company's computer networks, is about to roll out a new piece of silicon optimized for networking.

He based his speculation on Cisco's 2016 acquisition of Leaba, an Israeli communications chip maker which it bought for $380 million.

"We think Cisco's announcement has its roots in new switching and routing silicon based on technology it acquired with Leaba," Leopold told clients in a note. In fact, he speculated that "Cisco will also shift its business model to sell its semiconductors to others."

If true, Cisco's move would be bad news for communications chip giant Broadcom and longtime networking rivals Juniper Networks and Arista. Coming out with its own chip would give Cisco "a new way to do business" with so-called web-scale operators - specifically, tech giants such as Google, Amazon and Facebook that rely on massive data centers to run their platforms, and who could perhaps benefit from including Cisco processor tech in their infrastructure.

It's a market where Cisco is hoping to expand and where it is competing with such players as Arista. "We believe Arista and Juniper have secured a much more meaningful portion of sales from operators in this group," Leopold wrote.

Introducing a new chip would also give Cisco an opportunity to take market share from Broadcom, which has a strong position in the data center market.

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

The speculation comes at a time when traditional tech players like Cisco have had to adjust to the cloud which has disrupted the enterprise market by allowing businesses set up networks on web based platforms. This made it possible for them to scale down or abandon private data centers, which has hurt the business of hardware makers like Cisco.

In fact, Cisco recently said it was reorganizing to focus more closely on its cloud strategy.

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