Oct. 15, 1999 (Computer Reseller News - CMP via COMTEX) -- Geneva -
Cabletron Systems Inc. is striving to jump-start its once-thriving
networking business with a fresh executive team.
Cabletron's new executives were gathered here last week at Telecom
'99, trying to make over the company's image as a source of carrier
equipment and the champion of the channel for enterprise sales.
Cabletron Chief Executive Piyush Patel and Chief Operating Officer
Romulus Pereira pitched the vendor's Spectrum network-management
software as a carrier platform and released new switching products for
ISPs.
The Rochester, N.H.-based company's interest in gaining ground at
carrier sites will not detract from its enterprise efforts, said
Pereira.
"[Carriers] are becoming an alternate sales avenue back into the
enterprise," he said.
"Our large customers are trying to outsource their content. They are
trying to outsource their leased lines into a [virtual private
network]-based extranet. Extranets are outsourced. Data server farms
are getting outsourced. You have to follow the new sales avenue, which
is the new service provider, back to the enterprise customer," Pereira
said.
Even though Cabletron has good products, the channel does not trust
the vendor because of broken promises in the past. The company also has
undergone four major management changes in the past two years, said
Ellen Carney, an analyst at GartnerGroup Inc., a Stamford, Conn.-based
research firm.
"They have good intentions, but they would have to change the name of
the company or get acquired for their problems to go away," Carney
said.
Although Cabletron is known for enterprise gear, the company's new
executives said they want to emphasize its experience with carrier
technologies through its acquisition of Digital Equipment Corp.'s
networking division in early 1998.
Cabletron has discussed its carrier strategy for some time, but
"carriers like stability, and with four management changes in two
years, Cabletron has been anything but stable," said Carney.
The vendor currently receives about 60 percent of its revenue through
the channel, compared with only about 5 percent or 10 percent several
years ago, Patel said. The goal is to have about 70 percent of sales go
through the channel, he said.
Cabletron resellers could work with carriers that use or are served
by a Spectrum network-management system in the development of
applications on top of that platform, said Patel.
Currently, Spectrum is used in enterprises, but nearly half of its
implementations are in carrier networks, Patel said. One of the new
applications could be monitoring service-level-agreement enforcement.
Cabletron's direct-sales forces used to reach up to 10,000 of the
company's customers, but those sales agents now only are directed at
about 1,600 named accounts, said Patel. "All the rest of our sales must
go through the channel."
But Cabletron may still have some work to do to win the hearts of
resellers that have been burned by the company in the past.
Irene Griffiths, chief executive of Mikon Computer Systems Inc., a
Torrance, Calif.-based reseller said Cabletron talks a good game, but
she has not seen many of its channel marketing methods practiced at the
field level. Cabletron account executives still take orders for small
accounts, not just for global deals aimed at Internet service
providers, she said.
"We still see their field people pursuing accounts that resellers are
already engaged with," she said.
Since taking on the role of chief executive in late May, after the
resignation of Cabletron founder Craig Benson, Patel said he is trying
to change Cabletron's company culture to adopt a culture more similar
to Silicon Valley companies.
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