Cisco mum on Aussie job cuts

Cisco has kept mum on whether a reported 10,000 job cuts within the company will affect Australia.

Bloomberg reported sources close to the company claiming up to 7,000 jobs could go as early as September.

But the Australian office would not confirm the cuts or say where they may land. It refused to reveal local headcount including the size of its security team, and said it would disclose details on 10 August.

‘As we announced on our Q3 earnings call, Cisco will take out US$1 billion in costs from our FY 12 expense run-rate as part of our efforts to streamline company operations, including a planned reduction in workforce," it said in a statement.

"We will provide additional detail on the cost reductions, including layoffs, on our next earnings call on August 10, 2011."

In May, analysts were expecting Cisco to cut up to 4,000 jobs -- its largest cuts since 2002, after the dot-com bubble burst. 

However, unlike previous layoffs, Cisco does not face a collapse in stock valuations, but rather mounting pressure from rivals, such as HP, Juniper Networks, and video-conferencing vendor Polycom.  

HP today 2.5 percent of global Layer 2 and 3 Ethernet switching revenue market share in the first quarter of 2011, at a time when Cisco’s share fell 5.8 percent.

Additionally, a Cisco merger with storage and virtualisation kingpin EMC could also make sense in order to make the former a more competitive player, according to Marshall. 

With Liam Tung.