Cisco staffers have an inside joke that shows how badly the 34-year-old company is trying to re-invent itself

Business Insider Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins

• Cisco is so focused on updating its revenue model that it's become a joke for executives at the company.
• Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins said that his team has turned "Meraki" into a verb to discuss revamping its products.
• Meraki is the name of Cisco's cloud-based wifi and security network system. It uses cloud network management and a subscription revenue model that execs want to implement throughout the company.
• While the momentum is there, Robbins said it's proven difficult to make sweeping changes at the 34-year-old tech giant.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Cisco may be associated with licensing fees and vendor lock-in, but the $218 billion router and switches company wants to change that.

So much so, in fact, that executives at the company have an inside joke about moving old products onto a new revenue model.

Meraki is a cloud-based wifi and security network management system, which Cisco acquired in 2012 for a whopping $1.2 billion . Meraki's cloud management system lets engineers control the entire network from a mobile app. Cisco is betting that this cloud offering, along with its subscription-based revenue model, will pave the way forward from its legacy hardware business.

The company ultimately plans to put its existing products onto similar cloud/subscription models, Robbins said, adding that Cisco is "focused right now in our enterprise porfoltio."

Breaking a revenue losing streak

Already it's clear the company is taking steps toward this new framework. Cisco's latest release, the Catalyst 9000 series of switches, was announced in June with a subscription model in which customers buy the switch hardware, and separately subscribe to software offerings for a set period of time.

There are multiple price tiers depending on what features a customer wants in their software, but all of the subscriptions get updates as they come out.

It's a model familiar to most consumer tech users, where the customer pays to access the latest version a software for a set period of time, and keeps paying to retain access.

While internal momentum is there, Robbins told the audience that reworking payments at Cisco is proving difficult at the 34-year-old giant.

"Right now, the challenges we have are insuring we drive consistency of how our licensing works across the company," Robbins said. " Getting all of our internal processes, systems and billing - you can't underestimate how complicated that is."

Regardless, transformation at the company seems to be working. On Wednesday, Cisco reported an end to its eight-quarter revenue decline, with revenue up 3% year-over-year.

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