"It's a tremendous honor ... [but] very humbling," he told a group of international reporters today at the Cisco Partner Summit here.

Chambers said he was "obviously very proud," but said he has "mixed emotions" about replacing GM on the list after . "GM is a great company, always a great customer, and a very very good partner," Chambers said, adding that everybody at Cisco knows somebody at GM. "It's an icon."

Still, Cisco's addition to the Dow, a market barometer, shows the importance of networking technology, Chambers said. "The network will play a huge rule as more than a pipe ... and be involved in areas of major economic growth. Hopefully we'll do a good job to make them proud."

Chambers rarely comes across as a humble salesman of sophisticated networking gear, and actually did use much of his 40 minutes with news media to talk about the competition, including Hewlett Packard Co.