Sales are up 27 percent over the same quarter in 2009, which is a solid improvement. But, the truly impressive results are that profit is up nearly 63 percent over 2009, and earnings per share is up almost 61 percent.

"Our financial results were outstanding, achieving record level revenue and earnings per share results. We witnessed a return to strong balanced growth across geographies, products and customer segments that we haven't seen since before the global economic challenges began. We emerge from this downturn gaining market share, a larger share of the total wallet spend of our customers, dramatically improved customer relations as a trusted technology and business partner, and having next-generation products in almost every product category. It is clear that our game plan for how to handle economic downturns is hitting on all cylinders," said John Chambers, chairman and CEO of Cisco .

Chambers continued, "Our innovation and operational engines are exceeding our expectations. This applies to products, organization structures, business models, and movements into 30+ new market adjacencies. From almost every measurement perspective - revenues, earnings per share, new products, successful acquisitions, internal startups - our results in Q3 were the proof points that our strategy is working and was probably the strongest quarter in our history."

Cisco continues to work aggressively in its core markets. It --strengthening its Telepresence product line and adding to the portfolio of video conferencing technologies. Cisco also took advantage of the RSA Security Conference to unveil its new initiative which enables a seamless, always-on secure connection between remote and roaming workers and corporate network resources.

Cisco may also be looking to jump into new arenas. There is a rumor that Cisco may be considering . The tablet PC arena has lost two of its most notable potential contenders--the Microsoft Courier and the HP Slate, but HP is allegedly bouncing back with a . It's not Cisco's forte but it appears to be a hot market segment and Cisco may not want to sit back and watch .