Based on stock performances year to date, the question of which is the better buy, Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) or Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), would seem to be a no-brainer. Cisco is in the midst of a transition away from its legacy switches and routers — which still drive the majority of revenue — to cloud-based data centers, security, and the Internet of Things (IoT). Investors haven’t exactly thrown in the towel on Cisco, though its stock price is up just 4% in 2017.