Cisco Systems, Inc.’s prominence in networking hardware and infrastructure has been one of its defining qualities as a company, but with the rising interest in cloud and Software-Defined Networking (SDN), the company is keeping its options open for new developments.

Speaking with John Furrier, cohost of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, Cisco’s senior director and head of worldwide marketing for data center and cloud, Shashi Kiran, answered questions about the company’s future, its response to the shifting tech landscape, and how its working to meet consumer demands.

Adaptive networking

One of the most prominent questions coming out of the VMworld 2015 event was the importance of inter-clouding, which Kiran confirmed Cisco was giving priority in its immediate outlook, though he expects the full potential of this technology will take some time to be realized.

“Inter-clouding really becomes a powerful proposition when it’s this kind of multi-window, multi-hypervisor, any cloud (public, private, managed), any service provider, any device,” he explained. “So it’s some ways to go, whether it’s for Cisco or its for VMware or anything else. But I think it’s the right aspirational vision for leaders in the industry like Cisco or VMware to aim for.”

Another point of high interest was the way in which Cisco is staying competitive with its core focuses in the face of cloud-native apps and their increasing ubiquity.

“The whole notion of the cloud native is to be able to be agile and to feel safe, and to double-up applications that are native to the cloud,” Kiran said. “But at the same time, the dichotomy is we recognize IT organizations are sort of in this dual mode, where they have to preserve what’s working, a lot of the traditional applications … [will] still be around for the next five to seven years.”

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of VMworld 2015.

Photo by SiliconANGLE