I was catching up with my Forbes today, reading the 5/14/01 issue. It had a bearish article on Cisco, which included an interesting quote from AT&T executive that appears to bear on their deal with Ciena.
Re: Cisco's optical efforts, the article said that they attempted to put together an end-to-end solution with purchases of Cerent, Monterey and Pirelli. Article goes on to talk about how only Cerent box has generated obvious and meaningful revenues; Monterey product is gone and they cannot tell what if anything is happening with Pirelli. Re: the latter (as an aside), it quotes a "big" Cisco customer as follows: "We never understood why they bought Pirelli. It was never on our shortlist of suppliers."
Near the end, the article says:
"But in telecom, big players worry about relying on Cisco when it sells only metro [Cerent] gear. [Now, here's the killer quote] 'The vendor has to give us the capability for end-to-end,' says Hossein Eslambolchi, who runs AT&T's network. "Giving us the individual elements isn't enough.'"
Seems this quote, coming as it did about two weeks before the announcement of deal with Ciena, was prescient. Could it be foretelling wider relationship with Ciena that you have been predicting? |
