A Conversation With Cisco's John Chambers

Photo by Noah Berger
Given your planning cycle of three to five years, what's your vision for what Cisco will look like in five years?

Chambers: The future will be about any device to any content and it will be about intelligent networks. The second thing is that everything will come as a service. It will start off with software-as-a-service, but there will be services as a service, you will be able to buy technical support from our customers on either a contract basis or on an as needed basis ... If you think of Cisco three to five years from now, we have the opportunity along with our partners to be the most influential company in the world, not just on communications, but also in IT. And the role of the network will evolve dramatically, moving from merely transport or plumbing to more of an intelligent infrastructure that makes it completely transparent to where your applications are, where your storage is, where the processors are, what type of device you're on, [whether you are] at home or at your work or in your car or at a hotel -- your services automatically find you and move to you.

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