Cisco Systems Inc is laying off about 14,000 employees, representing nearly 20 percent of the network equipment maker's global workforce, technology news site CRN reported, citing sources close to the company.

San Jose, California-based Cisco is expected to announce the cuts within the next few weeks, the report said, as the company transition from its hardware roots into a software-centric organization.

Apart from Cisco, two other big software companies, Microsoft Corp and HP Inc, have also announced job cuts this year.

Microsoft said in July that it would lay off about 2,850 jobs over the next 12 months, taking its total planned job cuts to up to 4,700, or about 4 percent of its workforce.

HP Inc said in February it would cut about 3,000 jobs by the end of fiscal 2016.

Cisco, which had more than 70,000 employees as of April 30, declined to comment.

Cisco increasingly requires "different skill sets" for the "software-defined future" than it did in the past, as it pushes to capture a higher share of the addressable market and aims to boost its margins, the CRN report said citing a source familiar with the situation.