I worked at Cisco for a very short time, however I have been around the industry for ever. My judgement is that it is the weakest management team I have ever come across. Well most managers do not manage anything apart from the flow of information from the doers to the directors and above, so I call them aggregators. DSE's some good, many have their heads up their own back sides. Some great CSE's, very few sharp sales guys most are discount merchants, could not sell a glass of water in Middle of a Desert without discounting it 90%. As for Directors and above 3rd rate politicians who have been in the company 10 year plus, all they know is how to play the politics as their star is attached to another, they know when the sponsor goes , they go, so in the mean time head in the trough. As for company direction , what direction! There is not a single person who can tell you what the company trajectory is , is it Cloud, SDN/NfV, security, Collab, Hardware, Software and Services, all of the above , none of the above. I guess apart from sell what ever you can at what ever price there is no direction . Number 1 IT company, may be! After all anything is possible if you throw enough money at it and get the correct management in place, chances of it happening , less than 10% .