Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) reported their earnings tonight after the closing bell. The company wound up reporting EPS of $0.31 on GAAP principles and $0.33 on non-GAAP accounting principles. The stock closed out today's session down 0.8% to $27.28 down $0.23. Currently in after hour trading the stock is trading down about 1.2%.

We will be live blogging the entire conference call, so be sure to refresh your screen periodically to catch up to the minute action on today's call

4:10 Just reading through the earnings release and getting ready for today's call. Live coverage will start up in about 15 minutes

4:20 A couple of highlights from today's report: Quarterly profit surged 40%, boosted by surging demand for its Internet equipment. Sales surged 27% to $8.44 billion, more than analysts' expectations of $8.28 billion. Excluding special items, net income rose to $2.1 billion, or 33 cents per share, from $1.6 billion, or 26 cents per share, a year earlier. Waiting for the call to start with some relaxing music

4:28 Should be getting under way here any minute

4:38: Key financials: revenue of 8.4 billion... 27.4% year over year revenue growth. Fastest year over year growth in many years. Order growth solid. non GAAP 2.1 billion... 28% year over year

4:40 Revenue growth from all key products very strong. Router revenue grew 18% year over year, Switch revenue showed 13% growth year over year and advanced technology revenue grew 23% year over year (excluding Scientific Atlantic)

4:41 Excluding Scientific Atlanta product order growth grew over 20% year over year

4:43 Product orders in emerging markets showed remarkable growth of over 40%. Overall momentum remains strong for all products looking forward.

4:45 Revenue guidance for Q3 2007: year over year revenue growth of 19 to 20%. For Cisco stand alone growth estimates are 15 to 17%. Higher than previous guidance of 14 to 15%. Long term revenue guidance remains between 10 to 15%.

4:50 Just going back over the EPS GAAP and non-GAAP numbers again. EPS up 27% non GAAP and 41% on GAAP basis.

4:53 Balance sheet info: Cash and cash 20.7 billion. generated 2.7 billion from operations and 1.7 from stock options activity. repurchased 121 million shares of stock during the quarter. 2.9 billion in accounts receivable. 1.6 billion in total inventories. EPS up 27% non GAAP and 41% on GAAP basis.

4:56 Geographically... Business and tech in emerging markets working very well. Middle East and Africa showed order growth of around 80%. Thinks it is very possible to maintain emerging market growth of 40% over the next decade. Europe year over year order growth in the mid teens. UK, Germany and France showed growth in mid teens from an order perspective.

4:57 Canada growth over 30%. US growth showed growth a little over 20%. Asia Pacific growth from a product point of view in the mid teens. Japan in the low digits in product growth.

5:00 Growth in surge protection products in the low teens (excluding Scientific-Atlanta). Growth in enterprise order growth grew in low double digits.

5:01 Optical business has been growing 40% year over year

5:03 From a product point of view... the top 20 products accounted for 80% of revenue and 16 of these 20 products grew in double digits year over year

5:05 Their summary of industry seems to be playing out just how they had expected and they feel they are very well placed to lead the industry.

5:06 Looking ahead the are looking for total Q3 revenue of 8.7 billion to 8.8 billion with 19 to 20% growth year over year. Q4 total revenue 9.0 billion to 9.3 billion, with combined organic Q4 growth of about 16%, higher than previous estimates of 15%.

5:08 Cash flow from operations: expecting 500 to 700 million a month going forward

5:10 Talking a little more about momentum... once again very pleased. Progress of Scientific Atlanta ahead of where they had thought it would be a year ago. Commercial market remains very solid with great improvement globally. Architectural strategy in emerging markets should growth at twice the rate of the rest of their markets.

5:15 Starting Q&A - stock currently trading up 5.0% in the after hour trading

5:19 Got kicked off the call.... picked it back up with a discussion of how growth in HDTV is going to help boost transcription and their subscriber business.

5:23 John @ Morgan Stanley.... discuss more about head count addition... is employee productivity keeping up with the rate of new employees? Sales productivity has been consistent and will continue to add more sales reps. Advance service new employees take a little longer to get up to pace... usually closer to about 10 months for these employees.

5:26 Time @ Bank of America... on US Enterprises... what is causing this market share to show a little weakness in this area? Company says still feel really good about this segment of their business. Customers they talk to say the economy is having some issues, but all in all they are hearing that business is still doing fine. But all in all they are feeling really good about momentum in enterprise business

5:30 Mark @ RBC - looking at pipeline, things are looking great... are there any areas that are lagging? Not really... Communications are looking great. Video is another market that is providing strong growth potential moving forward. Key takeaway point is that the company's architecture is perfectly positioned moving forward.

5:38 Young @ Lehman: What can we expect in future U.S. enterprise business? They expect very solid double growth compounded growth in the US enterprise business.

5:40 Ahood (sorry if I butchered your name)... not sure from where... asking about increase in inventories... finished goods are up as the company gears for shipments that will be expected to go out begining of this quarter. Do they expect emerging markets to be for a decade? or till end of the decade? They are expecting the strong growth in emerging markets for the next 10 years.

5:47 Samual @ JMP: asking about linear growth. Company growth remained pretty linear during the second quarter

5:49 Phil @ Bear Stearns: how long will they be adding to sales? Hoping to add to the sales force for years to come. In the emerging countries they see a great place to continue to add to their sales growth. In many emerging markets they have very few sales reps and will continue to add. They see it as the need for adding to the sales force is a good indicator that the company is continuing to grow and is a positive indicator.

5:51 Sales call has come to an end. Stock currently trading up 4.8% following the call.