Cisco
Enterprise networking, security and collaboration software and infrastructure provider.
Available information varies by company and source.
Profile record updated:
Company facts
- Official name
- Cisco Systems, Inc.
- Entity type
- COMPANY
- Founded
- 1984
- Headquarters
- United States
- Company size
- >5,000
- Market role
- B2B SaaS Provider
- Ticker
- CSCO
- Official website
- cisco.com
What Cisco does
Cisco operates a blended enterprise infrastructure model that combines proprietary hardware, cloud-delivered software, embedded subscriptions, enterprise agreements and services. It creates value by supplying core networking and security infrastructure, then layering on management, observability, identity, collaboration and lifecycle automation software that increases operational dependence and recurring revenue. Its large installed base supports cross-sell into software, support, renewals and managed services, while its global partner ecosystem expands distribution and implementation capacity.
Category differentiation
Cisco is an enterprise networking and security infrastructure company, not an advertising technology platform. It is distinct from pure cloud-native collaboration vendors because its business spans hardware, software and services across networking, security and observability.
Strategic context
AI-supported assessment from the existing company research; distinguish interpretation from sourced facts.
Cisco Systems, Inc. is a public enterprise technology company that sells networking infrastructure, security software, observability tools, collaboration software and related services to large organisations, service providers and smaller businesses. Its portfolio spans cloud-managed networking, data-centre operations, SD-WAN, identity and access control, secure access, XDR, digital experience monitoring, IoT management and collaboration. Cisco also embeds AI capabilities across its software stack and provides managed and advisory services tied to customer deployments. Cisco generates revenue through a hybrid model of hardware sales, recurring software subscriptions, enterprise licensing agreements, support contracts and professional services. The company is increasingly oriented towards software and subscription revenue, supported by products such as Meraki, Webex, security platforms and observability tooling. Its customers are primarily enterprise IT, network, security, cloud and operations teams, alongside service providers and channel partners that deploy and manage Cisco environments at scale.
Company news briefing
Briefing updated:
Cisco has continued to expand its enterprise AI infrastructure capabilities, partnering with NVIDIA on the new Open Agent Safety Platform to monitor network chips and secure agent deployments. This development builds upon Cisco's ongoing collaboration with NVIDIA and Supermicro to deliver rack-scale Secure AI Factory solutions, alongside the continued integration of deep-networking AI models.
Business model & monetisation
Cisco monetises through one-off hardware sales, recurring software subscriptions, device-linked licences, enterprise agreements, maintenance and support contracts, and managed or advisory services. Meraki licensing requires ongoing valid licences tied to deployed products, Webex uses tiered subscription plans, and broader enterprise agreements bundle software and collaboration products into multi-year commitments. Cisco supplements product revenue with consulting, lifecycle services and managed operations, while acquisitions expand software attach and recurring revenue density.
- Software subscriptions and recurring licences
- Software Subscription
- Networking and infrastructure hardware
- One-time Sale
- Support and maintenance contracts
- Service Fee
- Professional and managed services
- Service Fee
- Collaboration SaaS and enterprise agreements
- Software Subscription
Products & capabilities
No products with linked sources are available in this view.
Products & market categories
Competitors & alternatives
- IBM
Enterprise cloud, AI, security and consulting provider.
- Fortinet
Enterprise cybersecurity platform spanning network, cloud and security operations.
- Nokia
Telecom infrastructure and network software supplier for operators and enterprises.
Side-by-side comparisons
Subsidiaries & acquisitions
- Splunk
Enterprise platform for security, observability and machine data analytics.
- Cisco Webex
Enterprise collaboration, calling and customer experience software from Cisco.
- Cisco Investments
Cisco’s corporate venture capital and strategic investment arm.
Recent recorded signals
Dates refer to the source publication. Older entries are historical context, not evidence of a new event.
Small Language Models: When Smaller Is Better
AI / Language Models · Recorded impact score: 2/5
This MLPills newsletter issue explains small language models (SLMs) — compact AI models designed to run under resource constraints such as limited memory, power, and latency budgets. It clarifies that 'small' is a comparative concept rather than a specific parameter count, and distinguishes SLMs from quantized frontier models and distillation. The article covers four main routes to building SLMs: curated data training, distillation, pruning, and quantization, and highlights examples including Microsoft's Phi-4 family, Google's Gemma 3n and Gemma 4 edge models, Hugging Face's SmolLM3, and Cisco's Antares vulnerability-localization models. It describes ideal use cases like classification, entity extraction, and tool selection, and recommends a layered architecture using deterministic code, small models, large models, and human oversight. The piece also cautions about evaluation, over-pruning, and privacy limitations of local inference.
- A 4B parameter model at 4-bit precision needs roughly 2 GB of memory; the same model at 16-bit needs roughly 8 GB.
- Microsoft's Phi-4 is a 14B parameter model, with a 3.8B Phi-4-Mini sibling and a Phi-4-Multimodal variant.
Managing Cisco ACE Load Balancer: Key Considerations
Load balancing / Application delivery infrastructure · Recorded impact score: 2/5
This technical guide explains operational risks and configuration considerations for Cisco ACE load balancers, a now-retired application delivery family. It covers traffic flow through virtual IPs, ACE predictor algorithms (weighted round-robin, least-connections, hash-based), health probe strategies (ICMP, TCP, HTTP, HTTPS, DNS), stickiness methods, and SSL termination implications. The article warns that ACE is end-of-life and cites CVE-2016-6399 (remote DoS via SSL/TLS) as an example of security exposure. It recommends detailed asset inventory (models, software versions, configs, certificates, failover behaviour, migration plans) and highlights migration challenges such as sticky rules, probe behavior, timeouts, NAT policies, and asymmetric routing that can break connection state.
- Cisco ACE family (including ACE 4710 and ACE modules) is a legacy, retired platform and is no longer supported.
- ACE supports multiple predictor algorithms: weighted round-robin, least-connections, and hash-based selection (address, cookie, header, URL).
Cisco Expands Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA for Rack-Scale
Infrastructure · Recorded impact score: 4/5
Cisco announced an expansion of its Secure AI Factory through a partnership with NVIDIA and Supermicro to deliver rack-scale, high-density AI computing solutions for enterprises, neoclouds, and sovereign clouds. The offering adds Supermicro liquid- and air-cooled servers validated as part of Cisco’s full-stack Secure AI Factory architecture, supports trillion-parameter training and high-throughput inference, and is NVIDIA Cloud Partner (NCP) compliant. Cisco says the solution integrates Cisco Silicon One and NVIDIA Spectrum‑X networking, Cisco Nexus One orchestration, and new Cisco Validated Infrastructure Services aligned with NVIDIA Infrastructure Services to simplify deployment, improve observability, and reduce deployment risk. Executives from Cisco and NVIDIA framed the expansion as enabling faster time-to-value, stronger security, and operational simplicity for large-scale AI deployments.
- Cisco announced an expansion of its Secure AI Factory through a partnership with NVIDIA and Supermicro.
- Cisco will offer Supermicro liquid- and air-cooled rack-scale GPU systems validated and sold as part of Cisco’s AI infrastructure portfolio.
Jim Cramer: Cisco Post-Earnings Drop Is Buying Opportunity
Financials · Recorded impact score: 4/5
CNBC host Jim Cramer said Cisco’s stock decline after its earnings report represents a buying opportunity, arguing that conservative guidance from management can mask strong underlying demand. Cramer pointed to strength in AI-related networking, security and data-center networking and said Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins often sets cautious forecasts that leave room to beat expectations. Cisco shares closed down 8.4% in the regular session following the report. The article was published August 13, 2026 by Alexa LoMonaco on CNBC.
- Jim Cramer said Cisco’s post-earnings pullback is a buying opportunity.
- Cisco shares closed down 8.4% during Thursday’s regular trading session.
Cisco stock drops despite earnings beat
Financials · Recorded impact score: 4/5
Cisco reported fiscal Q4 results that beat expectations—adjusted EPS $1.22 vs $1.17 expected and revenue $17.25 billion (about an 18% year‑over‑year increase) vs $16.82 billion expected—and guided current‑quarter revenue to $18.0–$18.2 billion versus the $16.8 billion LSEG consensus. Hyperscalers placed roughly $4 billion of infrastructure orders in the quarter, bringing fiscal‑year hyperscaler orders to $9.3 billion; Cisco expects hyperscaler‑related revenue to rise to about $7.5 billion in fiscal 2027. Net income rose 51% year‑over‑year to $3.9 billion (97 cents a share). Despite the beat and above‑consensus guidance, shares fell about 9% on Aug. 13, 2026. Some analysts (Piper Sandler) called the guidance conservative while KeyBanc remained bullish; management described the period as a record quarter but urged prudence entering the new fiscal year.
- Shares fell about 9% on Aug. 13, 2026, despite an earnings beat.
- Adjusted EPS $1.22 vs $1.17 expected; revenue $17.25 billion vs $16.82 billion expected (fiscal Q4, about 18% YoY).
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Questions about Cisco
What is Cisco?
Cisco is a public enterprise technology company that sells networking, security, collaboration, observability and infrastructure management products and services.
Who uses Cisco?
Cisco is used by enterprise IT, networking, security, cloud and operations teams, as well as service providers and SMBs buying managed network and collaboration tools.
How does Cisco make money?
Cisco makes money from hardware sales, recurring software subscriptions, device-linked licences, enterprise agreements, support contracts and professional services.
Sources & coverage
This profile uses public, official and technically observable information. Missing information does not prove that a product or relationship does not exist. The list below does not imply that every profile statement has been verified.
19 publicly documented primary sources and citations linked across the market graph.
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