Interview w/ Eric, Part X
Q. What about Cabletron?
A. I think Cabletron has perhaps more inertia in its business
than anyone else by virtue of having such close direct
relationships with a few large Enterprise customers. Therefore,
it would take a long time for Cabletron to be wiped out by a
business down turn. But by the same token, Cabletron has
always suffered from being too narrowly focused, so they miss
several technology waves. They denied the benefit or the
necessity of making acquisitions for too long. And then when
they started making them, it was too little too late, and not well
enough executed. So in many ways I think Cabletron has de
facto admitted to be more of a niche oriented vendor, strong in
that niche, but nevertheless not a broad based vendor that can
set the pace of the industry.
Q. How about Intel. Why won't Intel take over the NIC market
given the control they have over the PC component?
A. Because there is a fundamental architectural difference
between the processing subsystem and the communication
subsystem. It requires very, very different engineering skills,
and they're just not known for that. It is remarkable that a
company as financially wealthy as Intel has tried repeatedly to
buy its way into this market by either buying companies, or
engaging in a lavish promotions or by aggressively slashing
prices, and still end up losing shares quarter after quarter
against us and really not being a player in networking.
I mean for every large networking project that goes on in the
world, Intel is not invited to the table. They may sell some
networking technology as part of the computer, but they're not
invited to the table as a networking vendor. So this is a sort of a
side effect, or a by-product of the Intel inside campaign. Intel is
a great microprocessor company, one of the most phenomenal
ompanies in the world that I have immense respect for. But in
some dimensions, not in all. I don't believe that Intel has made
it's mark in networking yet.
Q. Do you expect that they will? |
