Cisco is continuing to adjust its organization and product lines even after carrying out a broad reorganization announced last year, which cut $1 billion of annual expenses and more than 12,000 jobs. In May, the company its Cius tablet, and just last week it announced the elimination of about positions.

Cisco faces numerous challenges to go with its wide-ranging product portfolio. One of the largest is the transformation many observers expect with SDN, which may leave some of Cisco's equipment out of the loop. During the quarter, the company announced its own network programmability architecture, called Cisco Open Network Environment. And just last week, the company disclosed it is developing a new, low-latency data-center switch, the Nexus 3500, probably aimed at rivals using Infiniband.

Not counting one-time items, the company recorded earnings per share in the quarter of $0.47, just over the $0.46 forecast by analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters. Quarterly revenue also slightly beat analysts' expectations of $11.7 billion.