"If you haven't got new changes and new competitors coming at you, you probably are in the wrong spot," John Chambers said.

In an interview with CRN TV, Cisco's CEO discusses old foes like HP and Juniper Networks as well as new adversaries like Microsoft and Huawei.

"Every year, there's a new competitor," Chambers said. "Fifteen months ago, it was about what HP and Juniper and Avaya and Huawei were going to be able to do to us and how we were in trouble. You fast forward 15 months later, we're beating them all."

Chambers paid particular attention to Huawei, which is widely seen as Cisco's biggest competitive threat today, and criticized the Chinese telecom giant's pricing schemes, which Chambers said tend to increase year after year once Huawei has won the customer account.

"We're getting good at competing against Huawei," he said.

See the video below for more of the CRN TV interview with John Chambers.

PUBLISHED OCT. 11, 2012