CEO John Chambers took the opportunity on Cisco's (NASDAQ:CSCO) earnings call to essentially shoot down the rumor that they were making a bid for FireEye (NASDAQ:FEYE) - although the use of phrases like "would not bet" on a merger certainly left things a little open ended - but it raised an important point. Cisco has been a relatively slow grower averaging about 4% revenue growth a year since 2010. While it maintains a dominant position in its industry and generates billions in free cash flow annually, does Cisco need to make a splash in the M&A market in order to kickstart growth? Security has been a rapidly growing and is expected to continue to be for the next several years. Cisco has been developing its own security business and may be where it sees growth coming from in the future. But the company only derives a few percent of its revenue from cybersecurity which is why the rumor may have popped up that Cisco was interested in FireEye. Instead of taking the time to develop the technology in house why not just buy one of the more reputable cybersecurity companies and start hitting the gas on growth right now? Read more