Another reason Cisco gave for discontinuing the TGX 8750 is that it could
not build a single product at price points that both enterprises and service
providers expect. As a result, Cisco
"bifurcated" TGX 8750 resources among the MGX 8850 and the Catalyst
8540 enterprise campus switch router.
And Cisco's third reason, according to sources, is that the 20G bit/sec
TGX 8750 no longer makes sense for the core when the MGX 8850 scales
to 45G bit/sec.
Observers say Cisco's three different explanations for the demise of its
core IP/ATM switch indicates that the company's WAN
switching strategy is just as scattershot-even three years after the
StrataCom acquisition. This, along with the release of only one new WAN
platform in three years and the apparent loss of frame relay market share,
signals that Cisco has so far benefited little from StrataCom, and vice
versa.
The only apparent gain from StrataCom is that Cisco bought its way into
the AT&T and Worldcom public frame relay networks.
"They've renamed a bunch of products but I haven't seen much more than
that," says Bob Bellman, president of BrookTrail Research in
Natick, Mass. "Nothing exciting, anyway."
So with a key piece of its WAN switching strategy missing, and another
significantly delayed, Cisco's WAN switching vision is a blur. The
company must regain its sight quickly because competitors like
Ascend/Lucent, Newbridge and Nortel can make significant gains in the
time it could take Cisco to develop -
or acquire - and ship competitive products.
"The real question is, where is Cisco in core ATM," says PITA Group's
Johnson.
Says a Cisco competitor, "Remember the theme 'Married: IP+ATM'?
Looks like divorce papers have been issued by the lawyers of
Cisco's routing group and StrataCom's switching group!" |
