Interview: Cisco's John Chambers

What we would hope to see in the next president, be they Republican or Democrat, is somebody that really understands how to use technology to address growth opportunities, job creation, more economic stability, productivity which translates into standard of living, and giving this opportunity to more and more people. And an ability to tackle the tough issues, such as healthcare. Expanding healthcare to all people in our country I think should be a major national goal, and an enabler of that should be high-tech, because if you can take 20 or 30 percent of the costs out of healthcare and use those savings to provide services to those that aren't getting covered, you could not only provide a higher quality of healthcare, you could do it in a way that goes across all Americans.

You're currently an advisor to Sen. John McCain. Would you expect to play a role in his administration if he is elected?

Oh, I'm very honored that anybody would ever mention my consideration in government but I love what I'm doing now and I made a commitment to my board of directors and to my employees and shareholders about a year ago for another three to five years in this role, which I fully intend to maintain. So do we help governments around the world? We're very honored to do so. Will Cisco remain very active in that role? Absolutely. Do I think I'm of most value to this company and this country in my current role? I actually do.

The softening in this economy, what impact is that having on the IT talent shortage?

That's a very good question. I think we're still job-constrained in terms of IT talent, whether it's in this country or around the world. It's something I would like to see us be more aggressive on in terms of our immigration policy for people with college degrees, especially in high-tech that we expand the H-1B status capability, because each person that we bring to this country to put in engineering and high-tech generates two to three other jobs in my company, a good three to five jobs in the local economy ... Having said that, we're going to go wherever the talent is in the world, not as a labor arbitrage play but it is a focus on the war for talent and getting the best and the brightest around the world be a part of Cisco which we are clearly trying to do.

Can you talk a little bit about WebEx and what we'll see out of that this year?

Yes, it's, fascinating ... While we've done over 130 acquisitions, WebEx has a very realistic possibility of being in the top five, maybe even in the top two in terms of the long-term contribution to Cisco. That's pretty unique company when you think of companies like Crescendo, our original acquisition, switching, which is now a $6 billion-plus marketplace for us or areas like Scientific-Atlanta which really enabled us to move into the service provider environment with more than just plumbing ... WebEx has the capabilities to expand well beyond just enabling collaboration, but providing many things as a service to the environment, embedding them deep into our products and a key differentiator for many of our customers and partners as well.

What about Linksys? It was about 2 years ago when you started talking about the future of that brand and what it might look like. Where is that going?

I think you are going to see Linksys develop into a Cisco brand over time and it will evolve in logical steps -- Linksys, and then Linksys - The Division of Cisco, then a Cisco-type brand. And part of the reason for that is it's no longer about a device in the home, it's about a home architecture. It's no longer about the home connected only within the home, it's about how does the home connect to us as we travel? It's how does the home connect to us in our business life? It's about literally a connected lifestyle regardless of where we are in the world, best set up for an architectural play.

Your Chief Development Officer, Charles Giancarlo, recently left the company. He was widely seen as someone that was being groomed to be your successor. Is there someone now that you are grooming for that role?

Well, we never comment upon most likely successors. I think it's very fair to say that we have always had three to five people in the succession line, and that we do not plan to make a change in that for at least three to five years ... But what Cisco has always been able to do is evolve its leadership team very successfully. Was Charlie in the final five and under consideration for those that might be the leaders in [the future]? Yes, he was. Which order we had him in is something that does not add value to the discussion. Am I very comfortable with our leadership evolution of our senior team? Oh yeah and we normally don't miss a beat. My job is to make sure when the eventual change comes as CEO, we don't miss a beat there either.