CISCO TO CUT UP TO 10,000 EMPLOYEES

Cisco could cut as many as 10,000 jobs — 14% of the company’s employees — in an effort to boost profits, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. 3,000 Cisco employees accepted buyouts and early retirement packages, which will cost Cisco between $500 million and $1.1 billion during the fourth quarter. While the layoff plans aren’t final, 7,000 more jobs could be cut by the end of August. The move comes as analysts predict that Cisco’s router and switches business will continue to slide into next year, and the company believes the job cuts could save it as much as $1 billion during 2012. “We will provide additional detail on the cost reductions, including layoffs, on our next earnings call,” Cisco spokesperson Karen Tillman said. The call is scheduled for early August. On April 12th, Cisco announced that it was restructuring its consumer business and killing off its Flip video camera arm.

CISCO PULLS THE PLUG ON THE FLIP CAMCORDER

Cisco has confirmed they will be discontinuing the popular Flip camcorder. Cisco purchased the Flip in Spring 2009 for $520 million in stock. Cisco CEO John Chambers says the brand is being dispatched as the company refocuses, done in by the proliferation of high-definition sensors into smartphones and PMPs and the like.

It is unknown why Cisco chose to close the Flip division rather than sell it off. The closing will leave over 550 employees looking for work.

APPLE TAKES HUGE HIT IN NASDAQ-100

NASDAQ on Tuesday announced that it will adjust the weighing of several companies in the NASDAQ-100 index to better reflect their market capitalizations. The NASDAQ-100 index is comprised of the 100 biggest non-financial stocks on the NASDAQ exchange. The adjustment, which will take place on May 2nd, is the first of its kind since 1998. Apple will take the biggest hit as its weighting will be adjusted down from 20.46% of the the index to 12.33%. The Cupertino-based company’s representation on the NASDAQ-100 is currently six times that of the No. 2 company, Microsoft, which will see its weight doubled on May 2nd. A total of 82 stocks will be adjusted downward while 18 companies including Microsoft, Google, Intel, Cisco and Oracle will get larger shares.

CISCO SHOWS OFF THE LINSYS E4200 DUAL BAND ROUTER; SPEEDS UP TO 450Mbps CAPABLE

Cisco has continued its push to make home entertainment wire-free with its latest E-Series wireless router, the Linksys E4200. Cisco's new dual-band 802.11n rig enters a high-end market segment currently occupied by the TRENDnet TEW-692GR. Both routers utilize a 3x3 Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) configuration for a max throughput of 450Mbps on the 5GHz band, and while the E4200 only reaches speeds of 300Mbps at 2.4 GHz (as compared to the TEW-692GRs 450Mbps) it should still be quite the video streaming powerhouse. As we've seen in previous Cisco offerings, the company's latest has USB connectivity and UPnP media server capabilities to add network storage and share all of your movies and music. Additionally, the E4200 packs technology similar to that seen in other routers, which allows users to prioritize bandwidth for movies, voice, or music. To keep everyone connected, it has 4 Gigabit Ethernet ports, six antennas, and several internal and external signal amplifiers to provide coverage for even the most palatial of estates. For those itching to pair a performance router with their new internet capable TV, the E4200 is priced at $179.99 and is currently available at Best Buy. [Engadget]

CISCO UNVEILS VERIZON LTE TABLET

Verizon has announced that it will offer the business-savvy Cius tablet on LTE starting this March, and will also offer LTE interfaces for Cisco's second generation Integrated Service Router. Verizon says it's got about one-third of the US covered with LTE, which offers downstream speeds between 5Mbps and 12Mbps, and will have the other two-thrids blanketed by 2012. If you're lucky enough to live in that first one-third, the Cius tablet, which sports a 7-inch diagonal touchscreen and weighs about 1.15lbs, could become your preferred form of business communication -- it offers HD video streaming, real-time video, and multi-party conferencing. Cius will also have 3G capability for those unfortunate souls operating outside of the LTE sphere. [Engadget]

LOGMEIN TAKES ON GOTOMEETING AND WEBEX

Microsoft, I.B.M., Cisco Systems and Citrix have some new, plucky competition when it comes to Web meeting software.

LogMeIn, a small company I profiled earlier this month, has released its own online meeting and collaboration tool, join.me. As usual, LogMeIn has tried to undercut its much larger rivals by dishing out a free service that requires less configuration set-up. Both home and office users can conduct meetings with up to 250 people — free.

To use the software, you go to the join.me Web site, click to share your computer and then get a code. You can send that code to anyone you like and off you go. People receive a phone number for holding conference calls, can send instant messages during presentations and can share control of a screen.

Cisco charges $49 per host, per month for its popular WebEx software. Citrix also charges $49 per month for GoToMeeting.

LogMeIn charges $29 per month for a “pro” version of join.me that has meeting schedulers, personalized access codes, and some others bits and bobs around account management.

It may seem nuts for LogMeIn to give away this type of software, particularly since it has to spend money managing data centers that set up and hold connections between people.

But the company has worked the free approach to its advantage before.

LogMeIn’s most popular products allow people to tap into their home or office computers while on the road. With such remote access software, people can use a laptop or a smartphone to browse their computers, finding important presentations, e-mail and photos.

LogMeIn feeds up 100,000 downloads a day of its remote access wares and about 95 percent of those downloads are for the free software. The company makes its money by selling a more sophisticated version of its software to businesses, which tend to use the product for remote support of their customers. [Republished from the New York Times]

CISCO TO RELEASE HD CONSUMER TELEPRESENCE SYSTEM

Cisco has had a corporate telepresence system for quite some time.  Now, it wants to move into the consumer end to give the average person the ability to teleconference in HD.  A device and service priced between $200 and $500 (depending on carrier subsidies) is expected to be announced at a press conference next week.  It would allow for video calling, much like SkypeHD.  The company will be launching "inexpensive home telepresence product for personal use" according to All Things Digital.  Marthin De Beer, Cisco Senior VP, stated earlier this year "We didn't buy Flip to have it be only a video recorder." [Engadget]

LEAKED: WEBOS 2.0 SCREENSHOTS

24 screenshots of the much anticipated WebOS 2.0 have leaked thanks to Chinese website wibozi.com.  From the screenshots we can tell some interesting functionality has been added like multiple IM account types, Cisco VPN support, Dropbox and Google Docs support and remote file storage with QuickOffice to name a few.  Hit the link to see the slideshow. [Engadget]

RUMOR: CISCO TO BUY SKYPE

Cisco has made an initial offer to buy Skype according to a source at TechCrunch.  Cisco is trying to get the deal done before the IPO process is complete for Skype, who has filed with SEC.  Skype is hoping for a valuation of around $5 billion and Cisco would have to make an offer in that range to make it of interest.

Google has also been rumored to be interested in Skype, however anti-trust concerns may have persuaded them not to pursue the acquisition.