Cisco Systems Inc

Los Angeles County's top technology officer violated conflict-of-interest law in his handling of a $250-million telecommunications contract and a subsequent order that all county agencies buy equipment from Cisco Systems, a company in which he owns stock, according to a confidential audit obtained Monday.

Cisco Systems Inc., a bellwether in the devastated networking equipment industry, gave Wall Street a bit to cheer about Monday as it reported better-than-expected quarterly sales amid a loss of $268 million. Company executives also forecast flat to slightly higher sales for the current three-month period, even though the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks may have knocked as much as 5% off sales growth for the current quarter.

About 80 of the 6,000 employees Cisco Systems laid off in April have found a good reason to hold their heads high at a time when many suddenly unemployed tech workers are having a tough time coping. In lieu of severance, they agreed to work for a year at homeless shelters, food banks and other charities, earning just a third of their Cisco salaries but keeping their benefits and stock plans. It doesn't cost the nonprofits anything and the workers get an inside shot if Cisco starts hiring again.

Offering a glimmer of good news after months of earnings woes, telecommunications equipment bellwethers Cisco Systems Inc. and Lucent Technologies Inc. told analysts Thursday that their recoveries remain on track as they continue to restructure. The news drew a mixed reaction from investors. Lucent's shares closed at $6.65, down 3 cents, on the New York Stock Exchange. Cisco's shares closed at $16.76, up 28 cents, on Nasdaq, then climbed as high as $17.63 in after-hours trading.

Two former Cisco Systems Inc. accountants pleaded guilty to computer-fraud charges, admitting that they illegally transferred $7.8 million in company stock to their personal brokerage accounts, prosecutors said. Geoffrey Osowski, 30, and Wilson Tang, 35, face up to five years in prison for misusing Cisco's computer system to obtain more than 230,000 shares of stock in the largest maker of computer-networking equipment.

Network equipment giant Cisco Systems Inc. matched Wall Street's modest expectations Tuesday even though its quarterly profit tumbled 86%, and the company warned that sales could shrink by an additional 5% in the current quarter. "No one really knows when the economic and capital spending will bottom out and go up," said John Chambers, Cisco's chief executive, in a conference call with investment analysts. He added that slack demand in Europe and Asia could drag down U.S.

Networking giant Cisco Systems Inc. is expected to announce today it has been picked by China United Telecommunications Corp. to help China's No. 2 mobile telephone operator expand its communications network. San Jose-based Cisco said the expansion, valued at about $40 million, will include its routers, switches and access servers. The program will begin this month and will be rolled out over the next 12 to 18 months.

Cisco Systems Inc. said it set the price for new employee stock options at $18.57, Monday's closing price, after a 77% plunge from the stock's record high made many options worthless. Chief Executive John Chambers said in March that he planned to issue additional options as an incentive for workers to remain with firm. Shares of San Jose-based Cisco rose 17 cents to close at $18.74 on Nasdaq. They set a record of $82 on March 27, 2000.

The Internet may be gigantic, but it's not infinite--at least not yet. But the lofty goal of enabling the mother of all networks to serve a virtually unlimited number of people and devices got a modest boost Monday. Network hardware giant Cisco Systems Inc. announced that its equipment now supports a new system that can expand the 4.2 billion potential Internet "addresses" available today by several orders of magnitude.