Cisco confirmed Wednesday that it will slash 5,500 jobs, or about 7% of its total workforce, to cut costs and make room for investments in trendy new areas like cloud computing and the Internet of Things.

"Today's market requires Cisco and our customers to be decisive, move with greater speed and drive more innovation than we've seen in our history," Cisco said in its earnings release announcing the cuts. "We expect to reinvest substantially all of the cost savings from these actions back into these businesses and will continue to aggressively invest to focus on our areas of future growth."

The layoffs, while significant, are smaller than had been rumored. CRN, a technology publication, first reported Tuesday that Cisco planned to cut 14,000 jobs or almost 20% of its workforce.

Cisco is pushing to make the shift from pricey networking hardware for businesses to software and cloud services.

Under CEO Chuck Robbins, who took over from John Chambers about a year ago, Cisco has pushed to stay competitive through a $1.4 billion acquisition of Jasper, a company focused on the Internet of Things, and through partnerships with businesses like Apple.

Despite those concerns, the layoffs come as Cisco remains in a position of some strength.

Cisco's earnings and revenue beat Wall Street estimates for the quarter ending in June. Overall sales hit $12.6 billion for the quarter, up 2% from the same period a year earlier.

Cisco is far from the only tech company making layoffs this year.

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