Cisco Wants to Save $1B, Layoffs Coming

From DailyTech: Cisco is historically one of the strongest and more profitable technology firms. Its performance over the last several months has declined significantly in the face of increasing competition and the admitted fact that Cisco was trying to compete in too many markets at the same time. Things are not looking good for Cisco and the company is looking at shedding workers in an effort to save money.

Cisco wants to save about $1 billion and is looking at layoffs and many other things to get the company back on the path to increasing profits. WRAL.com reports that Cisco is looking at shedding "thousands" of workers to help cut costs.

Cisco currently has 73,000 workers globally and the company has already eliminated 550 jobs and killed off some of its products that weren't as profitable as it hoped. One of the products that were killed recently was the Flip line of video cameras.

Reuters reports that Cisco has warned that the overall Q4 revenue would be flat with only 2% growth compared to the same quarter of the previous year. That would imply that profits would be in the $10.84 billion to $11.05 billion range, rather than the expectation of $11.59 billion.

The flat profits led to a decline in stock price with Reuters reporting the stock was at $17.72 per share, down 1%. Cisco CEO John Chambers said that the workers that would be impacted in the layoffs would know soon, likely by the end of the summer. The company has also offered early retirement packages to some workers to cut costs. Chambers said, "Cisco is a very strong company in a healthy market with a few problematic areas."

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