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Cisco Reports Fourth-Quarter 2016 Earnings (cnbc.com)

Cisco has reported its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings and they have exceeded analysts' expectations. CRN reported yesterday that the company will be laying off about 14,000 employees, representing nearly 20 percent of the company's global workforce, according to multiple sources close to the company. Instead, the company will be cutting only 5,500 positions, representing roughly 7 percent of its global workforce, beginning in the fiscal first quarter of 2017. CNBC reports: "The company reported fiscal fourth-quarter earnings of 63 cents a share on revenues of $12.64 billion, beating analyst expectations for 60 cents per share on revenues of $12.57 billion, according to a Thomson Reuters consensus estimate. The company said that 'today's market requires Cisco and our customers to be decisive, move with greater speed and drive more innovation than we've seen in our history.' Cisco said it expects to reinvest the cost savings from its restructuring plan into 'key priority areas such as security, IoT, collaboration, next generation data center and cloud.'"

30 comments

  1. 14000 - 5500 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That means they outsourced or H-1B'd 8500 jobs! Well done!

  2. Profits up, lay 'em off! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Funny how they beat the street but still feel the need to start chopping heads. Gotta love those MBA's in charge not seeing past next quarter.

    1. Re:Profits up, lay 'em off! by zlives · · Score: 1

      meh~ lets see who exercises their golden parachutepants next 2 quarters.

    2. Re:Profits up, lay 'em off! by sabri · · Score: 1

      Funny how they beat the street but still feel the need to start chopping heads.

      If you pay attention, you'll see that they have done this nearly every year. It's an exercise to get of the 10-15% lowest performers.

      In large companies like Cisco, with large groups, it is easy for the lazy and underperforming to "hide". Most large teams I worked in, 20% of the folks were doing 80% of the work. Why? Because in large teams, HR will insist to hire underqualified and new-grad employees who are basically useless, and sit around all day attending meetings while feeling important.

      Interestingly, it is those people who are either laid off, or promoted to "manage" something not important.

      --
      I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
  3. Huh?! by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Good News: We beat Wall Street expectations!
    Bad New: We're still laying off people because the CEO needs a raise to buy another yacht.

    1. Re:Huh?! by npslider · · Score: 1

      Either they are running out of new customers to sell their overpriced products to, or the products are lasting so long, they are not being replaced as fast anymore.

      Or the boss needs a new private jet... this time painted blue.

    2. Re:Huh?! by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Or the boss needs a new private jet... this time painted blue.

      When I got laid off from Cisco in 2013, the CEO got a 60% raise despite a lousy fiscal year. Rumor had it that he needed a new yacht to keep up with the other CEOs.

    3. Re:Huh?! by npslider · · Score: 1

      He who has the most toys...

      Still dies with none.

      But that does not stop people from screwing over their fellow man to get more toys, sadly.

    4. Re:Huh?! by Cramer · · Score: 1

      And yet, every job hunting site on the planet has various Cisco jobs posted.

    5. Re: Huh?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Trust me, I work with Cisco all day everyday. Their products have never been so crap compared to the competition. They've been on a "me too" mission for about 10 years and it's only getting worse.

    6. Re:Huh?! by npslider · · Score: 1

      Perhaps at half the pay of the people being kicked out the door?

    7. Re:Huh?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I doubt he will be buying anything. Wall Street expectations were very low and they only just beat, the stock market will be "ok" with it as they expected the bad results but they won't consider that good news.

    8. Re:Huh?! by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Hey you need to send me $50 and I'll buy you a coffee.

      No that's not optional. You made more money than I did and therefore I'm entitled to be paid money for work I do for you whether you need me to do that work for you or not.

      Sounds kind of stupid doesn't it? Making money does not mean you should be obligated in any way to pay dead weight.

  4. No good deed goes unpunished by npslider · · Score: 3

    CISCO: "Hail fellow workers! Your hard work has brought in more money than expected! You shall be rewarded handsomely. The 93% of you still employed tomorrow will still get a paycheck. Please check your email to see who you are."

    1. Re:No good deed goes unpunished by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      So you know the specifics of how workers helped CISCO earn money? It sounds like CISCO could have had earnings even higher if they didn't need to pay for a number of staff who clearly serve no purpose.

    2. Re:No good deed goes unpunished by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And just think how much more their earnings could have been if they'd taken all those "no-purpose" employees and found a profitable purpose for them.

      I think that Juniper has just acquired several thousand unpaid salespeople.

    3. Re:No good deed goes unpunished by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      And just think how much more their earnings could have been if they'd taken all those "no-purpose" employees and found a profitable purpose for them.

      Cisco is not very good at that. They bought TGV for its windows TCP stack, then sat on the product for years until it was worthless. They turned the engineers on that project into Cable Modem engineers, eventually. Of course, there was substantial attrition all along the way. The truth is that Cisco has made many strategic purchases and wound up with a lot of staff that they don't know what to do with, and then just wound up laying them all off.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  5. Fuck Cisco by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fuck Cisco and every other US-based company shipping American jobs overseas. We need meaningful legislation to protect American jobs and put our own citizens first.

    1. Re:Fuck Cisco by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Good luck with that.
      With the pro-corporate Democrats and Republicans being paid off with bribes... ahem... sorry I mean campaign 'donations' no meaningful legislation will ever be passed.

  6. Why not link to the actual press release? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Fix the summary.

    Layoffs of 14k was purely speculation by CRN, Cisco announced 5500 people:

    https://newsroom.cisco.com/press-release-content?type=webcontent&articleId=1784571

    The restructuring will eliminate up to 5,500 positions, representing approximately 7 percent of our global workforce, and we will take action under this plan beginning in the first quarter of fiscal 2017.

  7. Fourth-Quarter 2016 Earnings ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I am super impressed that they can report their Fourth-Quarter 2016 Earnings while still only in the Third Quarter of 2016

    Perhaps their accountants have some sort of time machine?

    1. Re:Fourth-Quarter 2016 Earnings ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's the new math.. based on the same mathematical formula that the water department uses in your neighborhood so they don't actually have to look at the meter every month.... Estimate.. wait.. adjust =P

    2. Re:Fourth-Quarter 2016 Earnings ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Fiscal Year !== Roman Year

  8. Non-growth team layoffs hiring in growth areas by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fuck Cisco and every other US-based company shipping American jobs overseas. We need meaningful legislation to protect American jobs and put our own citizens first.

    What makes you say that?

    Corporations are groups with one sole charter: make money to appease the stockholders. Any corporation is going to do whatever maximizes profits, and no legislation is going to do a great job at curtailing that. We need to focus on education for jobs that aren't so easily reproduced overseas, not in filling holes in a breaking dam (e.g. let factory work go, focus on robotics and automation instead). My group at Cisco just cut an overseas team and rebuilt it in the US. The new US team will automate most of what the overseas team did.

    Layoffs are merely a way of herding business priorities. They're a natural consequence of a corporate/capitalist society lacking checks and balances. Let go of the worst performers on teams in non-growth areas in order to shift resources to promising (and cheaper) new hires for teams in growth areas. As noted by CNBC (and even cited by the Slashdot article summary), "Cisco said it expects to reinvest the cost savings from its restructuring plan into 'key priority areas such as security, IoT, collaboration, next generation data center and cloud.'"

  9. Short CSCO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    over bought, gonna crash , going short big time .... .... oh, sorry, .... forgot I wasn't on thestreet.com for a second there ...

    ----

    this move sniffs like a 'oh s&^%, we're gonna miss our number, so let's show the street we can be ruthless, it's all about the shareholder.' If it was, their 5 year return would be more like NASDAQ or DOW , which have done really nicely in the past 5 years ... and CSCO has languished ...

  10. FBI backbone devices and routers? OH GREAT by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We need this type of stuff on Tech News for Nerds.

    Why not just umm stockcharts.com?

  11. not laying off as many NOW - but later? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    sure, they're not laying off as many NOW, because they may need to juice their numbers in the future - hard to do that when the corpse dries out

  12. Re:Non-growth team layoffs hiring in growth areas by RabidReindeer · · Score: 1

    Corporations are groups with one sole charter: make money to appease the stockholders.

    I think you really need to get educated on what corporate charters are, who issues them, and what they mean. A corporate charter is simply a mandate granted by the people to operate as a unit, with certain privileges and responsibilities that the individuals who incorporate don't have. The world is full of non-profit corporations as well as profit-making corporations who choose to temper their greed with other considerations. There's no law that demands that in exchange for the "Inc." you have to be a predatory rapist with no regard for humanity/

    In any event, is this "making money to appease the stockholders" or is it liquidating assets to pocket a quick short-term savings before the reduced production capabilities kick in? Selling the future so someone can grab the cash and run in the present?

    I made my money - quite a lot of it - from being a long-term Cisco stockholder. When they stopped being a good long-term investment, I sold my shares and put the money to more constructive use.

    I have as much faith in "education" as I do in supply-side economics. Every day we find a new way to offshore or outright automate a once-secure profession. In fact, I'm just waiting for the day that the competitive companies are the ones that lay off all those overpriced executives and replace them with AI's. There are strong indications that a system like IBM's Watson may already be better at executive decision-making than meatbags are. AI's don't have to salve their egos with expensive toys or power games, so they're not going to be tempted to jerk corporate assets around for their own short-term benefit.

    Something needs to change. We cannot "downsize our way to greatness" forever. If we lay everyone off, who buys our products? Few people have any hope that re-education is anything more than a hamster wheel with a motor spinning it increasingly faster.

    Laying people off is a waste of resources. Unlike new hires, these are known quantities, have already learned the corporate ecocosm, and would be more motivate to work for the corporate benefit than a whole new group of people brought in knowing that they, too, are only there to be used and discarded. Why should recycling be a principle only applied to materials? Why aren't there any executives far-seeing enough to find new ways to exploit existing assets and to invest resources in molding them to new and profitable ends? We spend years on exploding executive compensation by rationalizing that these people were like Gods in their extra-ordinary wisdom and vision and deserved to be compensated accordingly. Why aren't they demonstrating these preternatural abilities to the benefit of the shareholders?

    It's a good thing executives are so extra-ordinarily well-compensated. The first time an Artificial Intelligence can utilize a corporation's human resources that efficiently, they, too will start joining the ranks of the laid-off. Only whatever savings the made from those fat paychecks will allow them to distinguish themselves from the peons they sent before them.

  13. Slightly innacurate statement by phorm · · Score: 1

    What a horribly inaccurate and misleading statemented. It'll actually be the 80% of staff still employed tomorrow... not 93%.