> To clarify post 15158, I was wondering about how much an
> equipment customer might get tied to using Cisco's products.
> If it is hard for the customer to switch to another supplier,
> this is good for Cisco, since it means they will keep the
> customer for a long time, and they can keep prices at a
> high level.
Nothing really stops you from using Cisco routers on your backbone,
Ascend for dialin access, Bay for your LAN switches etc etc., apart
from problems maintaining skills about three different vendor's
equipment, managing three vendors, losing some extra features
you always will have in a single-vendor environment, etc. It's
like putting computers together: you can build a great PC network:
that doesn't in any way stop you from one day plugging in a few
Macs, however now you've added somewhat to the administration
headache. If you're brave you can solve that easily by throwing
out all the PCs and installing just Macs, you then lose some
features and gain some others, and you've spend a lot of money,
but essentially at the end of the day you're probably getting
roughly the same job done.
I know a lot of Cisco customers, I've worked for two very large
ones in the past, and I can say that not a single one of them
are continuing to use Cisco because they feel "locked in". Maybe
the quality and customer support has something to do with it... |
