Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins wants everyone to know that while his company is migrating towards more software, hardware is still important.  

During yesterday's media briefing Q&A at Cisco Live, Robbins was asked if Cisco had completely moved to being a software subscription company.  

"We're completely committed and we're completely not finished," Robbins responded.  "We have a long way to go, but we've made a great deal of progress over the past few years. I think the stories that have been written, and the discussions about us becoming a software company, are not reflective of who we were and where we are and what is going to happen in the future."  

Robbins said Cisco would "continue to add more software content to our portfolio but we will continue to build massive, high-performance hardware." Robbins cited Cisco's Catalyst 9000 switching platform, which is the fastest growing product in its portfolio, as an example of blending software and hardware to fulfill customer needs. The custom ASICs in the 9000 switches enables encrypted traffic analytics.  

"We will have a combination," Robbins said of software and hardware. "To the extent that you can use software, it allows you to move faster and so we're still in the midst of this and I think we will be for quite some time."  

Cisco's David Goeckeler, senior vice president and general manager of the security business group, said that there was a lot of value being created by moving towards software.