New Cisco boss Chuck Robbins described himself as "extremely bullish", as he laid out his vision for the firm’s future at its Global Editors Conference in its San Jose headquarters.
Giving a public keynote address for the first time since taking the helm, Robbins tried to paint the IT giant as adapting to the lean, mean, startup environment. He said that "there’s a sense of paranoia" in large IT firms like Cisco, and "about the 6 people in the garage".
In response, he claimed his firm is ready to adapt. He said he demands things "faster, faster, faster" from his staff and senior executives.
Robbins laid out a variety of strategic shifts taking place at Cisco, and insisted that security was at the heart of what is happening. "We have to drive security everywhere", he said. "We don’t have a castle, we can’t put a moat around it, we have to do things differently."
Underlying how dramatic he believes the current shifts in technology are, Robbins said that "I do believe this is bigger than the first wave of the internet."
He summed up by saying "I truly believe that for Cisco the next decade can be better than the last."
