Free Republic

Cisco CEO John Chambers has sent a letter to President Obama calling for rules ensuring that both needs of national security and product integrity are met, according to reports. The Financial Times and Re/code are reporting that Chambers sent a letter dated May 15 to Obama, warning that confidence in an open Internet is being "eroded by revelations of governments' surveillance" and asking him to create new standards of conduct about how the government collects data. "Absent a new approach where industry plays a role, but in which you, Mr. President, can lead, we are concerned that our country's global...

Cisco announced plans on Monday to lay off 9% of its workforce and to transfer another 7% of its staff to another company in a sale of one of its businesses. The networking giant said it would hand out pink slips to 6,500 employees, including 2,100 who volunteered for early retirement packages. The move is part of a previously announced plan to streamline Cisco's business in an attempt to clarify the company's role in the tech world. Cisco has struggled to grow in recent quarters, and CEO John Chambers' tone has grown increasingly pessimistic. In April, Cisco shuttered its Flip...

Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) seems as though it cannot win for losing. The company’s updated “action plan” involves a further organizational simplification, implying lower costs and layoffs. The company aims to trim $1 billion from its annual operating budget and it is going to lay off about 6,500 workers as a result. About 2,100 of those will be ‘voluntary early retirement’ plans, whatever that is. The plan calls for eliminating about 15% of vice president and above employees. That comes to a 9% total workforce reduction. There is more to this story than meets the eye.Employees in the U.S.,...

California Senator Barbara Boxer has been bludgeoning her Republican challenger, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, for outsourcing tens of thousands of jobs. We wonder if Ms. Boxer is equally outraged by her own big business backers. In a TV ad that has been running around California, Ms. Boxer blasts Ms. Fiorina for having "laid off 30,000 workers" and having "shipped jobs to China" during her time at H-P. Yesterday, the networking equipment giant Cisco nonetheless hosted the three-term Democrat for a townhall meeting with employees at its office in San Jose. Cisco CEO John Chambers, a former adviser to John...