Cisco’s getting no love from the stock market, despite beating the earnings expectations. Stock has tanked 10% today.. A pretty steep decline considering that the overall techmarket is down roughly 3%. Merrill slashed its rating on the stock to neutral and said, “Our discussions with market participants lead us to believe that the visibility is getting worse going into the next quarter. CEO Chambers highlighted similar concerns on the call.” I am not too sure how to read the overall market condition, but the worrisome factor is the rapid deceleration in the Advanced Technologies division, Cisco’s future growth engine,throughout 2004. The sequential revenue growth declined from ~29% in 1Q to ~5% in 4Q. This is all the cool stuff, like VoIP and Optical etc. Clearly the traction with phone companies is not as much as one would like to believe. As a positive sign, Legg Mason analysts point to “the largely symbolic reestablishment of Mr. Chamber’s salary as evidence of his confidence the company can continue the improving trends to revenues and earnings.”