Better Buy: Cisco Systems vs. IBM

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) and International Business Machines (NYSE: IBM) have one big thing in common. Both are formerly-hot tech stocks that fell out of favor amid changing technologies. Now, they seek to return to prominence by adapting to the current tech environment.

Though networking remains a large part of Cisco's business, it has worked to redefine itself as a 5G and security-oriented company. IBM appears to have staked its future as primarily a cloud play. Success in their chosen niches will determine whether these companies reemerge as venerable tech giants or if they get permanently left behind by more dynamic enterprises.

Twenty years ago, Cisco briefly had the largest market cap of any company in the world. This happened as Cisco products built the infrastructure of a then-burgeoning internet.