Mr. Bemis,
You must be knowledgeable enough to know that it is insufficient to adhere to the IETF BGP standard. Any router that is to be implemented in the internet must, in addition to adhering to RFCs 1105, 1163 and 1267, must converge properly without fail when placed in a network composed primarily of Cisco routers. I stand by my statement that only Cisco, Juniper and Nortel have passed this higher standard to the satisfaction of the internet engineering community.
It is the de facto standard that I refer to when I credit Cisco for inventing BGP, the de jure standard published by the IETF is essentially irrelevant when it comes to selling routers.
If it is so easy to prove total interoperability with existing BGP4 implementations, then why are Cisco, NT, and Juniper the only companies actually selling routers for use in core internets? I believe that at most, one or two of the Terabit router companies (Argon/Siemens, NetCore/Tellabs, Nexabit/Lucent, Avici, Pluris, Ironbridge, MRV, etc.) will ever see router one implemented in the backbone of a top 30 ISP, and the make-or-break factor will be software compatibility.
BTW I assume you believe that I am biased against Cisco. I believe this is a curious conclusion. I am not criticising Cisco for having an implementation with which it is difficult to interoperate. Rather, I see it as a key source of shareholder value that is less vulnerable to competitors than many seem to think. This perspective is a big reason why we decided to overweight the stock after the last quarter. |
