NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - To say that expectations for Cisco Systems are high is a massive understatement, kind of like referring to Mt. Everest as a hill.

When Cisco reports its fiscal second quarter numbers Tuesday, Wall Street will be hoping for nothing less than significantly better than expected sales and earnings and strong guidance.

Big businesses' willingness to increase their spending on high tech items should bode extremely well for Cisco (CSCO: Research, Estimates). The company generates a large portion of its revenues from selling networking gear such as switches and routers to corporations, which are sometimes referred to as enterprise customers.

"The driver of earnings for this year and next in tech should be more on the enterprise side and not so much the consumer. That helps Cisco," said Bill Thomas, head of U.S. equities for Baring Asset Management, which owns Cisco.

And the surprisingly strong results from networking equipment firm Nortel last week showed that even some beleaguered telecom firms are finally starting to boost their capital spending, particularly on wireless networks and technology that enables phone calls to be made over the Internet, known as voice over Internet protocol (VoIP).

However, this is not exactly a secret to investors. Cisco's shares soared 85 percent in 2003 and tacked on another 6 percent during the first month of this year. To keep climbing, it has to do more than confirm the obvious, i.e. that things are getting better.

Cisco's stock trades at about 36 times earnings estimates for fiscal 2004, which ends in July. But investors have been clearly willing to pay more for the stock because they believe estimates are too low.

To that end, Thomas said his analysts expect Cisco to report earnings of 75 cents per share this year and 85 cents in fiscal 2005. The Wall Street consensus estimates are for 71 cents in 2004 and 82 cents next year.

Now in some respects, the return of this "whisper number" mentality on Wall Street is a bit disturbing, as investors appear to be setting unreasonable targets for some companies. Cisco rival Foundry Networks, for example, was punished last week after posting fourth quarter results that were only slightly better than expected.

But in the case of Cisco, high hopes are not unwarranted. After all, Cisco routinely beat Wall Street's numbers during the last tech bull market.

And the company raised the bar in November when it reported a blowout first quarter, posting earnings of 17 cents a share, two cents better than expectations. Sales came in at $5.1 billion for the quarter, $240 million higher than Wall Street's consensus estimate.

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For the second quarter, analysts are expecting earnings of 17 cents per share. But Wall Street will probably be most interested in the sales number, since that will provide a glimpse as to just how strong the pickup in corporate demand really is.

The consensus estimate is $5.28 billion, which is 3.5 percent higher than Cisco's fiscal first quarter sales. However, Noor Kamruddin, an analyst with Firsthand Funds, a money management firm that specializes in tech and owns Cisco in several mutual funds, said she's hoping for Cisco to post an 8 percent increase from the first quarter. That works out to about $5.5 billion in sales.

But if Cisco soundly beats estimates in the second quarter, there will also be pressure on the company to boost its guidance for the third quarter. Currently, analysts are predicting earnings of 18 cents a share and sales of $5.36 billion.

Kamruddin said she's slightly worried that Cisco won't be able to live up to Wall Street's increasingly high hopes for third quarter guidance since demand tends to tail off a bit in the quarter. "I would love it if guidance is a bang but seasonally this is a weak quarter. We have to brace ourselves for the roller coaster ride," she said.

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In addition to the guidance, Wall Street will probably listen very closely to what exactly Cisco CEO John Chambers says about overall corporate demand.

Chambers, who was criticized by some for being too much of a cheerleader just before the tech bubble burst, had been cautious throughout most of last year even though it was clear that things were getting better. Wall Street will be eager to see if he continues to temper his enthusiasm.

Investors will also be looking for more information about Cisco's emerging businesses.

Although Cisco dominates the market for routers and switches, these areas are starting to mature. Kamruddin said storage and VoIP are two key growth areas for the company.

Knox Fuqua, manager of the AAM Equity fund, which owns Cisco, said he's interested to hear about the progress that its Linksys unit is making. Cisco bought Linksys, which sells routers to consumers and small businesses, last year.

Although this acquisition strayed a bit from Cisco's big business focus, Fuqua thinks that Linksys could help Cisco cash in on what it is expected to be a big tech trend for the next few years, wireless networks in the home.