Cisco's Q3, outlook better than expected

Cisco's third quarter was better than expected and the company's outlook allayed fears.

The networking giant reported fiscal third quarter earnings of $2.3 billion, or 46 cents a share, on revenue of $12 billion, down from $12.1 billion a year ago. Excluding the company's divested video business sales were up 3 percent. Non-GAAP earnings were 57 cents a share, two cents ahead of expectations.

As for the outlook, Cisco projected fourth quarter revenue growth to be flat to up 3 percent normalized to exclude its video business. Earnings on a non-GAAP basis are projected to be 59 cents a share to 61 cents a share.

Wall Street was looking for fourth quarter sales to fall 3 percent or so with non-GAAP earnings of 58 cents a share.

Overall, CEO Chuck Robbins said the company managed the quarter well "despite the challenging environment." He added that the company is transitioning to be more about software and subscriptions.

The company completed 5 acquisitions in the quarter including Jasper Technologies.