Chuck Robbins, who previously ran the Americas sales region, will immediately assume Lloyd's prior role as the head of worldwide sales. Wim Elfrink, executive vice president and chief globalization officer, will continue his focus on emerging solutions and the development of new markets, and will integrate his organization into the development and sales organization.

Patel, Elfrink and Robbins will report to Lloyd.

"Today we're evolving our organization and developing our leadership team to grasp this opportunity" of , mobility and pervasive Internet connectivity, said CEO in a statement. "We're optimizing the alignment across development and sales, and on the top priorities of our customers, to maximize speed to market and our competitive advantage. At the same time, we are focusing on operational excellence across the company, which creates capacity for innovation, investment and growth."

Moore and Lloyd were recently as CEO should he retire or be "hit by a bus." Chambers indicated plans to retire in two to four years.

Jim Duffy has been covering technology for over 25 years, 21 at Network World. He also writes The Cisco Connection blog and can be reached on Twitter @Jim_Duffy.