Hi gdichaz,
But it is not so much that Cisco will have trouble having telecom firms accept Cisco as a gorilla, but Cisco has
had, and will continue to have, trouble being, repeat being, a gorilla in telecom.
I would respectfully take issue with that statement.
Cisco's gorillaness in networking has not transferred successfully beyond enterprise networks. So while the technologies in enterprise networks and telecom seem similar, viva la difference say the Junipers and others who swim more easily in the fiberglass in "telecom" space.
I have heard these type of statements from a number of sources of late, and I would like to add a few comments.
The prevailing view is that Juniper is taking over Cisco's business, particularly in the telco space. I disagree. While I certainly agree it is a concern that Cisco has been unable to combat Juniper, Juniper is in a niche market. They deal with BGP routers that are tuned for a very specific purpose - the core of backbone internet providers. Yes, they are beating Cisco in one product category, but that is hardly fatal to Cisco's business plan.
Today's Internet hosting centers are truly amazing. I have been in a few, and these centers are football field in size, filled with rows and rows of web hosting servers. In the corner are some Juniper routers that handle the core routing functions, but a considerably larger amount of Cisco hardware is being utilized to aggregate all of the customer traffic from Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, and GB Ethernet, into data streams of OC48 and increasingly OC192. This complex aggregation is required before the data ever reaches the Juniper routers. The amount of Cisco hardware needed to aggregate all of this traffic is truly amazing - literally rows and rows of Catalyst switches. If you ever get a chance to visit one of these sites, I recommend you do. Cisco is selling into this space in fine fashion, thank you
Lets talk about the Telcos. Most have been moving into data for some time now, since the hand writing is on the wall for the demise of voice as a viable future cash flow model. Who has been their primary strategic data partner? The ones I am aware of team with Cisco.
Cisco employees have repeatedly told me that their primary focus these days is the IP telephony space. They call it AVVID, which stands for Architecture for Voice Video and Integrated Data. Cisco is replacing the Nortel, Lucent, and NEC PBXs with a fully integrated IP telephony solution that places your voice on the enterprise data network as another data application. The phone that sets on your desk plugs into an Ethernet jack, just like your PC (Actually the phone plugs into the jack your PC originally plugged into. The PC then plugs into your phone) I resell this stuff and ver. 3.0 is real, it works, and customers are increasingly choosing this solution over the traditional PBX solutions. I can sell both Avvid or traditional PBXs, so I have no axe to grind here, but IMO Cisco will dominate this space in a very short period of time. The advantages of this architecture are just to compelling.
Anyone care to speculate on the amount of PBX business that is at risk due to Cisco's Avvid architecture? On top of that, the customer's data network typically must be upgraded to accommodate integrated voice (ie, more Cisco hardware) in order to handle the stringent latency and jitter requirements that voice traffic imposes.
I had a customer tell me yesterday that they took an IP phone from work and placed it on their DSL line at home. Now, when their phone rings at work, it also rings on their IP phone at home. They also now get their voice mail via their email, get email on their phone, and can send voice mail via email to another co-worker. Very cool, and that is just the beginning of the synergies we will see with both voice and data on the same network.
My point is this: Yes, Cisco is getting real competition in the terabit router market. I am also concerned about their lack of presence in the fiber market. These are longer term concerns that hopefully will get ironed out. In the meantime, however, Cisco is moving very forcefully into the IP telephony space, and I don't see any meaningful competition to stop them.
Regards,
Skier |
