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Today's story stock is Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO). CSCO released its fiscal fourth quarter earnings after the bell today and the results were very good. CSCO reported earnings per share of 36 cents per share, versus analysts estimates of 35 cents per share. The company also reported revenues of $9.43 billion versus estimates of $9.29 billion. The net income ended up about 25% higher than in the same period last year.

The best part about the story at CSCO was not the fiscal fourth quarter earnings, but the increase in its long-term sales forecast. Cisco CEO John Chambers said that the company is raising its long-term sales forecast from 10-15% to 12-17%. For the current quarter CSCO also raised revenue guidance to $9.45-$9.55 billion, above current analysts expectations of $9.39 billion in revenue. The changing of the long-term growth rate is a significant development at Cisco. For a company as large as Cisco to be guiding up 2% on long-term growth, things have to be going very well.

John Chambers has a history of being cautious in his conference calls and not  sounding too optimistic, which makes the call today that much more impressive. Chambers was even asked if the tightening credit market was affecting CSCO at all, and he quickly responded by saying no and that the current global economic picture from his view was as strong as ever. Obviously, mortgage lenders and investment banks would have a different view of the economic picture at this time, but this is great news for CSCO and those in the networking and infrastructure industry.

Does this conference call mean that technology is the place to go? The answer is possibly so. It is clear that technology names have very little if any exposure to the fixed-income market problems swirling around at this point, and technology growth is very strong right now. Cisco is in the process of regaining its position as a market leader and today will take the company a couple steps further in that direction.

To view the other story stock article from tonight on another technology company click here.