From the chief exec that used to be known for his forthrightness and old fashioned southern straight talking, truly Chambers has become the master of the weasel words.

>"While there are no guarantees, we think the odds are reasonable

>that if we execute effectively...we may be able to avoid large downsizing events,"

Translation: I'm too much of a pussy to fess up, but arterial blood is going to soak the halls of Cisco offices around the world. Start prepping your CVs, boys. But don't be scared, we'll do it in two or three smaller hacks so that no-one notices your screams of pain.

Cisco has a large outsource workforce working and they have already started cutting them.

A net profit of *only* $1.5bn? Boo hoo. And they want to fire people because of this? Greedy bastards. If I worked there I'd go on strike!

who knows what else they've got wrong in their sums. Maybe they didn't make a profit at all, because they ran out of fingers to count on.