Cisco operations chief to make sense of increasingly complex strategy

Cisco has promoted Gary Moore, one of its long-serving vice presidents, to a new position of chief operating officer.

Moore will be charged with making day-to-day operational sense of the complex strategy of acquisition and diversification woven over the past two years by chief executive John Chambers.

Once regarded as the dull but worthy plumber of the internet, Cisco has so many fingers in so many pies that it is often difficult to see a coherent picture.

Since the emergence of Chinese competitors to its core switching and routing products, the networking giant has embarked on an orgy of disparate acquisitions which has led some analysts to question Chambers' historically sound leadership. He has been at Cisco's helm since the mid-nineties.

That came into sharp focus when this year's second-quarter results showed Cisco's core switching and routing market had taken a hammering.

Revenue was larger from sales of the company's new products in videoconferencing and virtualisation. Chambers defended his performance, admitting the company was in a transitional phase, but pointing to rising revenue from the latest gizmos as proof that his strategy is working.

Analysts have commented that with the focus of the company pulled away from the switching market, this is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Despite promoting Moore, a 10-year Cisco veteran, Cisco has denied that it is lining him up to succeed Chambers.

Yesterday, Cisco quietly canned the hosted email service it launched as a trial in November 2009.

"Customers have come to view their email as a mature and commoditised tool versus a long-term differentiated element of their collaboration strategy," explained Debra Chrapaty, senior vice president for collaboration software, in a blog.

"We have also heard that customers are eager to embrace emerging collaboration tools such as social software and video," she added.

Cisco will support existing customers to the end of their contracts while helping them find homes elsewhere for their outsourced email, said Chrapaty.