But the bridge has been burned between Cisco and another major server vendor: Hewlett-Packard, which once was a close partner of Cisco, analysts said. Cisco's UCS introduction earlier this year took it into close competition with HP's core server business, and HP last month announced plans to acquire 3Com, expanding its competition against Cisco in networking.

Also on Tuesday, Chambers said Cisco foresaw every stage of its recent fight to win over shareholders of Norwegian video systems vendor Tandberg.

On Oct. 1, Cisco announced an with Tandberg's board to acquire the company for about US$3 billion. After signals that some large shareholders thought the bid was too low and the deal wouldn't reach the required vote of 90 percent of shares, Cisco at first defended its offer and hinted it might drop the deal if forced, but later its offer to US$3.4 billion.

But Cisco's management saw all that coming and mapped out various scenarios, Chambers said during a press luncheon at the financial analyst conference.

"We went into it knowing the exact challenges that we would face. ... It unfolded much like we anticipated," Chambers said.