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posted by n1 on Tuesday August 19 2014, @11:29PM   Printer-friendly
from the interesting-arithmetic dept.

ZeroHedge reports:

Cisco reported a whole lot of numbers as part of its Q4 earnings release. For the most part these were largely irrelevant, but for the pedants out there here is what Wall Street is focusing on: revenue and EPS beats of $12.36 billion ($12.15 billion estimated) and $0.55 ($0.53 estimated) even as Chinese sales continue to crater, plunging 23% in the quarter: thank you NSA.

But the punchline was revealed into the conference call when John Chambers announced CSCO would proceed with another mass layoff, firing 6,000 people or 8% of its workforce.

Putting this number in context, CSCO also announced it had just spent $1.5 billion in the quarter to repurchase 61 million shares of its stock, bringing the total for 2014 to $9.5 billion (including $3.8 billion in dividends).

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Tuesday August 19 2014, @11:39PM

    by frojack (1554) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @11:39PM (#83292) Journal

    Repurchasing your own stock is a way of putting money in the bank, without having to deal with the bank.
    You can either retire that stock, (share holders love that) or hold it as treasury stock, and sell it again when you need more funds.

    Dumping employees? that's hard to figure, unless the turn down in sales is expected to continue.
    If it was expected to continue, why not buy stock later when its cheaper?

    In any event, it sounds like the Huawei bashing by their friends in government have been doing is working.

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday August 19 2014, @11:48PM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 19 2014, @11:48PM (#83294) Journal

      You sure it has nothing to do with the 512k routes limits in the BGP routers?
      Sorta: if we increase the routes number, we'll be selling more expensive stuff, the customers are stuffed anyway - less workers/route required

      (ducks)

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 20 2014, @12:07AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 20 2014, @12:07AM (#83303)

        That is like saying Ford's stock is down because the 1990 F series pickup is not keeping up with fuel efficiency demands.

      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday August 20 2014, @06:19AM

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 20 2014, @06:19AM (#83410) Journal
        (whooshh?? Lame attempt of a joke, I know).
        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 20 2014, @12:12AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 20 2014, @12:12AM (#83305)

      Dumping employees? that's hard to figure, unless the turn down in sales is expected to continue.
      https://finance.yahoo.com/news/now-better-idea-where-many-004800420.html [yahoo.com]

      They are downsizing in areas where their sales are hurting. They are not going to double down. Thats called flushing good money after bad. They probably will be hiring in other countries where business is growing.

      HOWEVER, 20billion in debt. Means they probably have huge sums locked up overseas (50billion) and are borrowing domestically to pay for dividends. That is not healthy.

      • (Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Wednesday August 20 2014, @02:29AM

        by Nerdfest (80) on Wednesday August 20 2014, @02:29AM (#83337)

        They have also demonstrated that their equipment can't be trusted overseas, so spending more money there is probably not a great idea unless they're bribing buyers.

        • (Score: 4, Informative) by TheGratefulNet on Wednesday August 20 2014, @02:47AM

          by TheGratefulNet (659) on Wednesday August 20 2014, @02:47AM (#83344)

          they are not alone; their equip (AND ALL THE REST MADE IN THE USA) is under the calea laws and there HAS to be wire-tappable ways into the box. its called 'lawful intercept' and has been a US rule for well over 10 yrs (probably more, but I've been aware of LI stuff for at least 10 yrs).

          this is not the same as the NSA spying, but again, why single out cisco when its not a company choice, its forced on you by US rules (both real and imaginary).

          cisco has over 70k employees and many of them are deadwood. ob disc: I work at cisco and I see the huge diff between low quality bullshit employees and the real router/switch gurus. it didn't help things that so much was outsourced to india; but even many of the US employees are indian transplants and, well, not that many are really top notch, sorry to say.

          sadly, it will be the higher paid guys and the older guys who will be let go. the cheaper slaves will be kept, as always ;(

          --
          "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 20 2014, @12:03AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 20 2014, @12:03AM (#83302)

    NT

    • (Score: 2) by zafiro17 on Wednesday August 20 2014, @11:22AM

      by zafiro17 (234) on Wednesday August 20 2014, @11:22AM (#83484) Homepage

      That would be a terrible purchase for Microsoft, so I don't see it happening any time soon. It would put them in a market with low margins, in which Microsoft has no core expertise; it wins them little or nothing, it contributes nothing to their key strategic markets, and it drives no sales of their other products.

      The best they could do would be to market some sort of X-Box like appliance based on Cisco hardware that provides some kind of NAS/gaming/backup/auxiliary services and a product like that ought to come out of their Xbox team, not by buying someone like Cisco.

      --
      Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey
  • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 20 2014, @12:14AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 20 2014, @12:14AM (#83306)

    WE NEED MORE CHANGE

    GIVE US 100% UNEMPLOYMENT ALREADY

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by kaszz on Wednesday August 20 2014, @12:20AM

    by kaszz (4211) on Wednesday August 20 2014, @12:20AM (#83308) Journal

    What a coincidence that that most companies don't respect software engineers [soylentnews.org]. Perhaps companies like Cisco? :P Probably they treat engineers in other fields than software the same. Perhaps the real "MBA moment" happened in 1990 [wikipedia.org]. Otoh, William Yeager is likely to have some things to say about iOS software and Stanford about hardware designs..
    Nowadays Juniper perhaps gives them a hard time. And also future emerging businesses that has been given a nice sales opportunity by proving that trust was overvalued.

    In the end creators, founders, employees and sometimes even shareholders get screwed. Anyones guess where the money flow ends up ..? ;)

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Wednesday August 20 2014, @12:33AM

    by Thexalon (636) on Wednesday August 20 2014, @12:33AM (#83313)

    "For five years now, you've worked your ass off at Initech, hoping for a promotion or some kind of profit sharing or something. Five years of your mid-20s now, gone. And you're gonna go in tomorrow and they're gonna throw you out into the street. You know why? So Bill Lumbergh's stock will go up a quarter of a point."

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 20 2014, @12:50AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 20 2014, @12:50AM (#83316)

      Five years of your mid-20s is your mid-20s. But don't worry, as soon as you're over-30 you'll be unemployable for the rest of your life.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Pslytely Psycho on Wednesday August 20 2014, @01:15AM

    by Pslytely Psycho (1218) on Wednesday August 20 2014, @01:15AM (#83325)

    "Fire one-million. You heard me. One million!"

    --
    Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
  • (Score: 2) by quadrox on Wednesday August 20 2014, @06:14AM

    by quadrox (315) on Wednesday August 20 2014, @06:14AM (#83409)

    Yeah I'm gonna be "that guy" and point out that I don't think it's appropriate to call a layoff of 6000 people a punchline. I am sure that the people who got laid off feel quite different about it.

    Yes I know that it was meant in a kind of sarcastic way against cisco, but I still think it's inappropriate.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Wednesday August 20 2014, @11:23AM

    by PizzaRollPlinkett (4512) on Wednesday August 20 2014, @11:23AM (#83486)

    My hobby over the past few years has been keeping track of technology companies as they purge workers. Then, when I see talk about a "shortage" of workers, I think about the long list of purges. Unfortunately, worker purges happen so often that I have trouble remembering all of them. I should have made a written list. Someone ought to start a web site that lists technology-industry purges.

    I keep saying this, and I ought to just stop, because I can't say it with every single one of these articles, but this short-term cutting mentality destroys companies. In the short term, cutting employees or portion sizes or whatever juices a manager's bonus, but in the long term it destroys the company.

    The problem is, managers get rewarded for cutting in the short term, so they just keep doing it.

    So we have a 300-count box of Kleenex down to 210 tissues. Bags of shredded cheese, sold by weight, are mostly crumbs. Ziploc just made their plastic bags thinner. Tech companies purge workers.

    But, at some point, you can't cut any more. And today's professional management doesn't know what else to do. They're not capable of growing and innovating.

    --
    (E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)