Cisco to cut 4000 jobs

Cisco is cutting 4,000 jobs, or 5%f its workforce, as it makes a fresh attempt to reduce costs and refocus on growth areas in the face of uncertain demand for its network equipment.

Shares in the world's biggest network equipment maker, known for providing phone systems in offices across the world, fell more than 9 percent after hours, their biggest drop in more than a year.

A lukewarm revenue forecast dashed expectations that Cisco could overcome muted demand for tech infrastructure. Its shares had been up more than 50 percent in the past 12 months.

Cisco, which has offices in London and was one of the sponsors of the 2012 Games, has been whittling away at its workforce and selling off consumer businesses such as home networking, in a turnaround that begun in 2010, when it started losing ground to nimbler rivals like Juniper Networks and Palo Alto Networks.

The company that once specialized in providing the backbone of the Internet now sees software and equipment for datacenters and corporate cloud networking as its keys to growth. But Wednesday's results suggest the pace of expansion has been slower than anticipated, analysts said.

"The environment in terms of our business is improving slightly but nowhere near the pace that we want," said Chief Executive John Chambers on a conference call following quarterly earnings. "We have to very quickly reallocate the resources."

Cisco said last month it plans to buy cybersecurity company Sourcefire for $2.7 billion. The company has made it a priority to improve security across its hardware, software and cloud products.

Chambers also said the current business environment was underperforming his expectations. Despite strength in the United States, weakness in Asia and mixed results from Europe continued to dog its business.

Cisco is regarded a strong indicator of the general health of the technology industry because of its broad customer base.

Shares of Microsoft, Oracle, IBM and Hewlett-Packard all fell slightly in after hours trading.