The collaboration technologies business was a disappointment during Cisco's fiscal Q3, which ended in late April. Sales were flat due to market dynamics and lack of execution. TelePresence specifically, a key piece of Cisco's collaboration strategy, was hit by decreased spending in public sector and enterprise.

CEO John Chambers, during the recent Cisco Live conference, more than once , including the need for more operational consolidation.

"We did not agree as crisply as we should have on strategy, what was our architecture to get there, and then what is our multiple phase road map to get there," Chambers said at the time. "You'll see us go back to the basics and consolidate collaboration under one group and prioritize what we want to do or not."

These proclamations came shortly after Cisco only two months after it began shipping.

In , Cisco may just have simply overshot the market. Every product announcement was accompanied by a related array of new services offerings. And in the face of cautious spending and global economic challenges, if customers are not buying products they most likely are not buying the services to integrate them.