Cisco to Cut 5,500 Jobs, Shift Focus to Faster-Growth Areas
- Networking-gear maker to invest in security, cloud businesses
- Fourth-quarter profit tops estimates; revenue is in line
Cisco Sales Drops 2%, Sees Cut of 5,500 JObs
Cisco Systems Inc., the biggest maker of equipment that runs the internet, plans to cut 5,500 jobs, or 7 percent of its workforce, seeking to shift resources to faster-growth markets as sales slow in its traditional hardware-based businesses.
Chief Executive Chuck Robbins is trying to maintain his company’s dominance in networking gear, the backbone of the internet and corporate communications systems, as customers increasingly seek alternatives to the expensive hardware and proprietary software combinations that made Cisco so successful. Cutting Cisco’s workforce of about 73,000 may give Robbins the resources to speed up the company’s transition to a provider of software, hardware and services designed to suit customers’ needs as networking moves to cloud-based technology.