He initiated and then led Cisco's Small and Medium business activities including contributing to the development of Cisco's reseller channel. Recently, Giancarlo led a number of Cisco's emerging technology initiatives, including its push into Unified Communications, home networking, wireless networking, security, video, and TelePresence. So it is clear that as Chief Development Officer, Giancarlo played a key role in driving Ciscos technical advances and helped the company determine what areas to focus on and how to position its products against competitors. Rather than replace him with one person, the company formed a Development Council, comprised of seven key technology leaders, who will oversee Cisco's development efforts and report directly to Chairman and CEO John Chambers. Whether this group will be as effective as Giancarlo was will become clear in the next year or two. Giancarlos move was only a minor surprise.