Cisco Systems Thursday revamped its technology development organisation in a move designed to help it capture new software business and build more integration into its product lines.

The company is consolidating several of its technology engineering groups into larger business groups to bring more efficiency into its product development process, said Charles Giancarlo, chief development officer, in a Q&A posted on the San Jose, Calif.-based company's Web site.

"We designed the new organisational structure to help us develop more integrated products and communications systems from conception through deployment, with the goal of reducing complexity for our customers and partners, thereby increasing quality," Giancarlo said. "Also, the creation of larger groups of related businesses will enable us to do more with less. It should help each team drive greater efficiencies."

The new structure will also give Cisco flexibility as it works to compete in multiple markets, he said.

The vendor has created four groups under its Cisco Development Organization, according to a Cisco statement.

The Software Group, led by Senior Vice President Don Proctor, includes network software, management, unified communications and collaboration, as well as Cisco's software-as-a-service strategy.

The Data Center, Switching & Services Group, led by Senior Vice President Jayshree Ullal, will develop enterprise-class products under the vendor's Datacenter 3.0 and Campus Communication Fabric initiatives.

"This large software organisation will bring greater consistency, quality and greater integration to our product line. It will also provide for greater career opportunities to our software professionals," Giancarlo said. "The changes in our data centre business will facilitate development of our next generation of virtualisation services. The integration of a number of our routing and switching technology groups will enable us to drive greater consistency throughout these systems."

Giancarlo called the transformation of the data center into a virtualised environment "one of the most exciting new market opportunities."

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