Clare,
You know this isn't the first time that I have heard you spout off about how great Cisco is and how inferior Cabletron and the competition is. Your Cisco veins are definitely pumping the party line! I will admit that for the last year or so Cabletron has been really sputtering but to say that they are on their way to irrelevancy is ridiculous! Although they may not be as big as Cisco they are still selling over $1.6 billion worth of networking equipment a year.
They are still pumping 8-10% of revenues back into R&D and are aggressively pursuing acquisitions.
In a new article in PC Week Labs 2/18/98 by Kristina Sullivan, the new strategies in Layer 3 switching were reviewed.
Utilizing new ASIC technologies vendors are virtually achieving wire speed. By performing packet-by-packet routing techniques in ASICs, these devices achieve speeds of 4 million, 7 million, even 30 million packets per second. Cabletron is one of the players in this field through its acquisition of Yago Systems as indicated within the article.
Cabletron has definitely changed direction with this line by going away from the cut-through switching that is used on the line of SecureFast switches that are designed primarily for internal subnets. With the new line of SmartSwitch routers which utilize packet-by-packet Layer 3 switching, Cabletron offers solutions that are satisfy both needs.
"What this boils down to is offering our customers a wider array of choices when they build their networks," said Trent Waterhouse, a senior architect with Cabletron, in Rochester, N.H. "In the past, our only option was cut-through. The SmartSwitch router allows Cabletron to offer standards-based, packet-by-packet routing." While SecureFast switches can still be used effectively in contained subnets, SmartSwitch routers are targeted at the network backbone.
One advantage of cut-through Layer 3 switching is lower price. Cabletron's hardware-based, cut-through SecureFast switches are about $250 per Fast Ethernet port, compared to $499 for a comparable SmartSwitch port.
As indicated in the article, there are drawbacks to cut-through Layer 3 switching which include networkwide software changes, the chance of errors and the use of proprietary techniques.
Packet-by-packet switches read everything into a buffer and make sure there are no defects before forwarding a transmission, while cut-through switches send packets out before the whole sequence is in. With cut-through, defective packets could already be on outbound ports by the time you realize they're defective, said Henry Hartman, brand manager for IBM's ATM switch products in Research Triangle Park, N.C.
Clare, I agree that Cabletron has stumbled in the past year or so. I disagree with you Cabletron is only acknowledged for in Spectrum. Cabletron has been long recognized as offering superior constructed products a lot of 'bells and whistles'. Unfortunately, their pricing could have been a little more competitive at times. They have also been recognized for going the extra mile to try to satisfy the customers needs even though a network problem might not be the result of their equipment. They were doing this long before some of their competitors even had their own technical support staff. This has created a large core of repeat business. Cabletron was late to embrace the use of channels and that has hurt them in the past couple of years or so. They appear to be working on that. I feel that Don Reed is on the right path and that he will turn his company around by the second half of the year.
My suggestion to someone looking at Cabletron would be to be aware of one or two potentially weak quarters and then prepare for a steady improvement. At this price point, Cabletron has a tremendous amount of potential in the mid to long term. Cisco is also a great stock for the mid to long term. The only thing that concerns me is the incredible amount of arrogance that Cisco has. They don't feel that anybody can beat them in any field that they apply themselves in.
That is dangerous as well as foolish! I have a lot of respect for Cisco but I must ask the Cisco people to remove their rose-colored glasses and realize that their may be some legitimate competition out there including COMS, BAY, CS, LU, NT, and ASND.
Cheers,
Steve |
