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Comments
Chambers: Cisco Will Win Tech's Next Elimination Round
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Drew Conry-Murray
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Drew Conry-Murray,
 User Rank: Ninja
10/10/2013 | 1:22:52 AM
re: Chambers: Cisco Will Win Tech's Next Elimination Round
I agree Cisco is coming from behind on SDN, but I don't think it's an unclosable gap. One major advantage Cisco has is a huge installed base that's likely willing to wait to see the full Cisco picture on SDN. However, if Cisco doesn't bring something really compelling to the table, those customers have a lot of other options. We'll see what happens with the Insieme launch. Good times indeed!
Thomas Claburn
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Thomas Claburn,
 User Rank: Author
10/10/2013 | 12:33:09 AM
re: Chambers: Cisco Will Win Tech's Next Elimination Round
Let's hope Cisco is done with venturing into the consumer market as it did with its Flip acquisition.
MarciaNWC
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MarciaNWC,
 User Rank: Author
10/9/2013 | 6:38:25 PM
re: Chambers: Cisco Will Win Tech's Next Elimination Round
It'll be very interesting to see what Cisco does at its coming-out party for Insieme Networks next month, and how it responds to all the competition in the SDN market.
RobPreston
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RobPreston,
 User Rank: Author
10/9/2013 | 5:47:56 PM
re: Chambers: Cisco Will Win Tech's Next Elimination Round
He never really said that Cisco competes directly with those vendors, though at some level it does. Certainly with HP in networking, Microsoft in unified communications, Dell in networking and storage at some level, Oracle (Sun) in the data center. Not so much with SAP or even IBM, I don't think.
TerryB
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TerryB,
 User Rank: Ninja
10/9/2013 | 5:29:48 PM
re: Chambers: Cisco Will Win Tech's Next Elimination Round
I'm not sure why Chambers thinks he competes with IBM, Microsoft, SAP, etc. That's stretching things quite a bit for company that still primarily sells routers and switches. There was a time 6-10 years ago our fairly small-ish mfg company wouldn't consider buying anything but Cisco for routers and switches. For switches, we probably use more Netgear gigabit switches now than Cisco switches, for price reasons. In my view, with exception of very high scale applications I'm not qualified to comment on, switches are a commodity now. We never have failures on these Netgear switches, hold up just like Cisco switches. And we use VLANs and QoS here.
Now routers, we have so few of them we have been staying with Cisco, mainly because the configurations are in Cisco language. Since myself and one other guy maintain them (no support contract in place), we stay with what we know. But we only buy those things once every 6-10 years.
As much as Chambers likes to think Cisco is an exciting and crucial company like early days of internet, they are not anymore. But doesn't mean they won't be around.
lochlain
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lochlain,
 User Rank: Apprentice
10/9/2013 | 4:37:12 PM
re: Chambers: Cisco Will Win Tech's Next Elimination Round
yup
EtherealMind
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EtherealMind,
 User Rank: Apprentice
10/9/2013 | 4:00:41 PM
re: Chambers: Cisco Will Win Tech's Next Elimination Round
Cisco has a good history of beating off competitors over the last decade or so, however it has always done this from a position of strength or innovation. In the Enterprise, IP telephony was an innovation and no one else even considered it was possible. Cisco UCS servers entered a saturated and mature market with true product differentiation.

On the other hand, the Service Provider division has been more incremental in innovation but delivering good returns while the Video portfolio has been slower to accelerate.

For SDN, Cisco appears to be a few years behind the trend and may be coming from behind. This may leave enough space for competitors to own the No1 spot and leave Cisco running somewhat behind. There has never been so many startups in networking attempting to move into the gap that Cisco may have created by ignoring SDN.

Now that Chambers is rallying the troops, I would agree that anything is possible. But are the troops used to fighting to win anymore. 10 years of success may have withered the drive and desire.

Good times, good times. :)
RobPreston
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RobPreston,
 User Rank: Author
10/9/2013 | 3:11:43 PM
re: Chambers: Cisco Will Win Tech's Next Elimination Round
...and I'm sure it is.
Lorna Garey
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Lorna Garey,
 User Rank: Author
10/9/2013 | 2:16:10 PM
re: Chambers: Cisco Will Win Tech's Next Elimination Round
Saying half Cisco's big tech competitors will be gone is pretty bold -- and quite possibly correct. However, new ones will rise to take their place. That's what should be keeping him awake.


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