Thread regarding Cisco Systems Inc. layoffs

warts and all, lets not be too hard on ourselves, csco has a successful product history for 30 years now.

But the success of that product history is going away. Look at how many things have gotten worse or failed.

Linksys (consumer) routers - Used to be the best and had little competition. My first one, before Cisco acquired them, out performed and outlasted newer generations. I'm just talking stability, not speed, as newer technology provided faster speeds at the cost of more frequent reboots. I kept that original 802.11b/g model around for years to run a "guest" network that allowed Nintendo handheld units to have WEP access for network play while several of the newer models completely stopped working after 18 months of use. Now Linksys is just one of many competing brands, and not even top rated from the Google results I find.

Scientific Atlanta DVRs - those were the worst DVRs I've EVER had to use. I'm not sure if the fault was the service provider or Cisco, but TiVo's worked SO much better. Faster boot up times; didn't reboot in the middle of the night when you were recording a show or watching a pre-recorded show; better UI. Cisco bought it for $6.9B, added a $5B acquisition of NDS, and then sells it off for a measly $600M.

Flip camera - Bought it, ruined it, and then moth-balled it instead of selling it off.

Other than routing and switching, where's that 30-year product success you were talking about? And look at the decline in revenue for switching and routing compared to previous years & Cisco's other products.

The talk about killing WebEx & Jabber in favor of Spark where it will have to compete with Slack does not make me feel that Cisco is moving in the right direction.

I will say, however, that IT at Cisco is much better equipped to manage large-scale enterprise environments than any other IT department I've ever worked in, so at least part of Cisco is the #1 IT (department) (in my experience).

yes, cisco is ok lifestyle company if you manage it correctly. not high-growth or most exciting to work but but there are still interesting networking challenge to solve and develop. Apps will always need connectivity so we will not go away anytime soon. Although I agree with early comment that we can do more with less people in the future and are not the big gorilla- we are more like turtle. Slow and steady.

YouTube, Nest, Verily, Search, Ads, Commerce, Maps, Apps, Cloud, Android, Chrome, Google Play, Chromecast, Chromebooks and Nexus

google mkt cap: $542 billion

cisco mkt cap: $152

other than cash cow search, anroid(an acquisition) which is free and being (probably) 3rd place in public cloud what successful offerings does google have in 15 years now? all their other stuff are non revenue generating subsidized by the search.

from gmail, to google docs to driverless cars they have not found much $$.

just being "engineering driven" or "data driven" as they proudly proclaim is no guarantor of success. just because something is anointed as "cool" wont earn the big bucks. fairly poisonous and low margin niches like industrial controllers or elevators or small robots earn their makers a tidy living over decades. self-proclaimed glamour is not all in life.

warts and all, lets not be too hard on ourselves, csco has a successful product history for 30 years now.

" Cisco sales teams, create the customer demand for our products "- what a load of GSX rubbish!

Sounds like another docker wearing penny loafing sporting pop-belly sales/se person living in the past when dinosaurs walked the earth, proprietary boxes/sw mattered, and IT/telecoms technology was somewhat exotic and not well understood. Tar pits await.

IT/telecoms industries are mature and deflationary. This is due in part to the open source movement (doing more for less), more automation, service providers and large firms driving down HW/SW pricing, etc...

Cisco will be a nice profitable $30B IT company. Customers are smarter than the sales teams these days so it's unlikely Cisco will need a lot of moderate/high paid sales teams to "create demand."

This is hilarious! You're telling me Engineers don't realise how much Sales are paid?

In the UK the average grade 10 will be on £136k OTE. If they hit 133% of goal, they will make £204k. Some will hit 200%+ which will take them to over £342k and that is based on standard 3x accelerators. People on single accounts might get >6x And making £1m in a year is not unheard of.

Engineers might think this is ridiculous because they are so clever and earn a 5th of these numbers. First this demonstrates an ignorance for what sales people do and the pressure they take on. Secondly, the market dictates the pay and believe it or not, Cisco is not even close to what others are prepared to pay for sales people. Whereas enginneers have knowledge not skills, which is becoming less valuable in the era of information and hence the market for their pay reflects this.

The thing is, if you want to give it a go, move in to sales. I mean you're the ones "doing the selling" anyway, so what difference would it make? I've seen many engineers move in to sales. Some sink and regret is mazxively and some do well. The one thing they all say though is they didn't realise how stressful it is and how much there is to manage.

Good luck speaking to Chuck about this, he is a sales guy and gets it. As for getting partners to sell for us, that doesn't work. Partners are fickle and ordertakers in the true sense. They will sell whatever is the path of least resistance or what makes the the most margin. Cisco sales teams, create the customer demand for our products not the other way as some lay people may believe.

The best thing for Cisco would be to leverage and grow their virtual sales an engineering teams and use partners. Much better cost basis with better results.

Oh no better call the waambulance for you peasants in engineering. Look at me I went to a smart college I know how to code in template follow the steps java or better yet I am a CCIE that has been here for 15 years and peaked 10 years ago but I'm cool because I'm a CCIE. You guys are a bunch of cry babies if it's so bad here then just leave plain and simple nobody is forcing nobody to stay.

@3zpb: Wow, such a fantastic idea, I wonder why no one thought about it. Yes! from my side.

I will meet you near bldg 10- look for my unicorn.

I work Cisco 15 years as engineer in BUs. I never know sales people make so much and no work- just take orders, makes expenses while let BUs sell and save them from making stupid promise to customer. I recommend the engineers create council to meet with David G., and Chuck and Kelly to discuss new business model. We can reduce sales salary and compensation and provide more investment to developmen. Since BUs do most selling, engineers can agree to get moneys based in how much our product selling! It can be consumption based with upside to developers because we don't get any bonus RSUs or commission anyway. If we save money for company then maybe no LR in February or summer? We are smarter and can make good thing happens!

Don't be mad because you are not invited to play with the big boys. Peasants!

@L73HZOg-2bcp: You make USD $450K/year by signing up existing longtime users for a refresh. Lots of money...no work. You are a glorified order-taker.

Irony is this is going away FAST and is part of the internal panic-factor. Life-long Cisco users are starting to realize there are other games in town, at the fraction of the price and those clients are disappearing. Hence the scramble to shift to software and the reoccurring revenue model of Meraki (i.e. You don't pay for your license this year - you can't get to the cloud app and your APs are pretty much worthless)

I put a gun to my heard every night so I can put food on the table.

I got Laid off From Cisco I got an Offer From Google I was at Cisco for 3 years and literally wanted to Kill Myself after a month of Joining Cisco. Google offer is 250K Base + Stock + Benefits and I was a grade 8 engineer while at Cisco. I know in 2 to 3 years I will be either Building my own startup or working with smart people on solving some real hard problems. I'm glad I'm not stuck at Cisco like you for a decade. God how do you not put a gun to your heard when you go home after work?!

@2bcp: thats the secret OP is hinting at . He can pull the rug on idiot- managers to give him $450k while he is at the gym. No wonder he finds cisco as No.1 IT company. He doesnt understand why we are all negative ( rolling eyes)

How do you make $450k at Cisco? Curious, in general what do managers, senior managers, directors, senior directors make?

I think the OP wanted to say that for people like him, Current-cisco is the best IT company in the world. Where else, would he get all that money and free time to spend in Gym during work hours.

For others in cisco, stuck in a bad environment- we didnt hit jackpot, like him, hence the negativity from us. I Completely understand the OP. Good for you dude !

Op....your post would be fine, except you point out "lots of negativity" as if that should not be the case. In that you are wrong. The negativity is completely justified. Right now you are holding on until you are hit by the surprise reorg that happens 2 or 3 layers above you that wipes out you and the team you are on and is replaced by cheaper more hungry younger folks who have a larger quota. Good luck.... csco does not care what you have accomplished because employees are no longer stakeholders.

OP here.

To clarify what I meant the money I make compared to others I know who work 24/7 at banks and law firms suggests Cisco is an easy place to make money. As I've said I do enough to over achieve and have done for many years, but that's not that hard at Cisco if you know how to. $450k was my best year to date and I know I could make more if I wanted to put the effort in.

My point was if I were to go elsewhere, I know it would be harder, hence why I'm sticking around until it gets hard.

Didn't even bother reading beyond "No. 1 IT company in the world" as the rest is also no doubt a fabrication.

OP: Please tell me the group you are in, I would like to join !!! If I had your life for even one month at cisco, I would die happy :)

Bingo! First to complain and last to WORK!

Please correct me if I am wrong but I don't see "ALL" on that post? How else are you supposed to respect your manager? Your swift reply proves my point Lazy Sh!tz are always first to complain when someone tells it like it is.

Let's see, they say "I respect my manager on a professional level" and then go on to call all their co-workers lazy sh*ts. Nice. That's respect!

I agree I'm only at Cisco because it's easy money for the hard workers as long as I handle my business and respect my manager on a professional level I will work here. My only complaint is how the company allows lazy Sh!tz to work here. Shameless lazy Sh!tz would not last one day in the real world and in the real world most companies don't give a crap about how many direct reports managers have under them as long as the team is kicking a--. I'd take a team of 5 with hungry workers over a team of 25 with lazy Sh!tz any day!

To all the engineers out there who have an issue with sales people earning that sort of money, feel free to give it a go and let's see how long you survive. Alternatively you can continue on being an engineer taking the easy money and getting your undeserved round of applause at GSX. I left Cisco a year ago to join AWS and it was only then I realised how rubbish Cisco SEs are. They would be found out in 10 minutes at AWS and sacked within a week for being lazy sh!ts, the difference is that huge.

OP (@L73HZOg) Please allow me to 'walk back' a couple of the sentences you laid out for us above:

"Last year I made over $450k and spent most the year in the gym and fixing my house up and playing with my kids."

.....and then two paragraphs later you said...

"It's a frightening thought of going somewhere else and having to work any harder"

Ya see the problem here? The problem is you and the other sh!theads like you on auto-pilot, riding this thing into the dirt until it stops paying off. Its all about you.

Good luck. I hope you are saving your fat checks.

You're in a dying company, a dinosaur of the IT world. Having spent almost 15 years at Cisco (which was about eight too many), I posit that the cancer of lazy sycophants will eventually kill the host. Your post proves my point.

I have been a csco developer for 20+ years now, overall to survive in the coming times, the thought process needs to change...

from ever increasing code sprawl and 1000s of commands, any project just adds more commands and knobs. anyone who can debug a packet from in-port to out-port over fast and slow paths is a guru now.

there are single digit people in BUs who know "something about everything"...one among 100s.

bugs get pushed from component to component like football as each team resists spending time on figuring it or admitting its their component at fault until someone literally gives them a stacktrace with their function on top! managers act like goalkeepers to punt bugs around.

things have to be simplified , both at team level (the disastrous PI and PD team boundaries) and at code level , REMOVING complexity , removing dated features, making upgrades reliable and simple vs the nightmare it is for customers....this will encourage customers to go ahead with upgrades rather than hold off for years ....

think about how a much newer co like google or fbook would think of the user exp on our routers/switches...a giant octopus CLI/dated SNMP support/REST API is not going to hack it no more.

otherwise the same chaos will reign as it has for years...and the world will continue its move to public or hybrid clouds over internal IT networks and csco will pass into the dark, alone and unsung....

I recommend that you proofread your post.

"Then"? Try "than."

Shows who is valued at that asinine place.

Ha Ha Ha! F---ing moron

What an idiotic trolling post by a narcissistic sales person. The company consists of much more than sales. Many good engineers who have found themselves too old and too expensive because of short sighted buzzword led shallow management are losing their jobs every quarter. I wish all LR'd people a better life outside of Cisco - it's a stressful overworked life keeping customers happy so that sales people can spend their day working out in the gym rather than doing proper research about products so they can sell. Bottom line - complex products are difficult to sell for lazy sales staff.

I agree that compared to some other companies out there, it is easy to make money at Cisco. Being the market leader means there is always business just happening. Some people are very good at making sure they get the accounts with business certain to happen one year and then drop them the next. The system is also setup so that all the way to VP level the aim is to get the lowest goal possible and therefore putting your personal agenda before what's best for the business.

The question is how long can this go on for? At some point and I suspect very soon due to the declining revenues, the business will need to ask more of its sales teams. Expect re-goals, more complex comms structures, caps, a stop on renewal payments, increasing goals and less resources.