Cisco Reorganizes Engineering

We usually don't pay a lot of attention to Cisco organization changes as long as John Chambers is still in place at the top, but the recent engineering changes caught our eye. It starts with the Chief Development Officer -- Charlie Giancarlo -- leaving to join a Private Equity firm. The plot gets somewhat more interesting if you add in the fact that Chambers just hired Padmasree Warrior as CTO (she had been Motorola's quite visible CTO prior). Cisco's CTO role had been open since last held by Charlie, and not very visible since Judy Estrin left in 2000. Warrior will report directly to Chambers as will the engineering functions. The other interesting change is that Chambers has built a software group led by Don Proctor and including the other major software development organizations. From our perspective software is at the core of Cisco's future given the system nature of most of Cisco's strategic initiatives. We look forward to seeing what Proctor decides to do.