Cisco offers early retirement as it revamps

BOSTON, USA: Networking giant Cisco Systems Inc is offering some employees incentives to retire early as part of an ongoing effort to revive a company that chief executive officer John Chambers has said has lost its way.

The company said on Thursday that the voluntary plan applied to some workers in the United States and Canada. Cisco said more changes would follow.

Two weeks ago, Cisco said it planned to dump its widely used Flip camera, killing a popular brand as Chambers looks to focus the company around its core business of selling hardware that forms that backbone of the Internet. As part of that move, Cisco is cutting 550 of its 73,000 jobs.

"Cisco will continue to focus on making business decisions to assess our portfolio strategy, simplify operations and pursue expense management efforts," said company spokeswoman Karen Tillman.