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Technology Stocks : Network Appliance -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DownSouth who wrote (1384)	8/19/1999 3:13:00 PM
From: Uncle Frank	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10934

>> That's my story, and I'm sticking to it! Good try, DS, but you better do a little more homework on Cisco. They indeed are an Enabling Gorilla. Their IOS (Internetwork Operating System) is an open but proprietary industry standard that is the networking analog to Microsoft's desktop operating system. Virtually every telco and networker licenses IOS. Imo, Cisco is a software company that uses their monopoly in IOS to leverage their hardware sales; this explains their 65% gross margins and 80% market share, neither of which would be sustainable if they were only a hardware manufacturer. Frank

To: DownSouth who wrote (1384)	8/19/1999 6:58:00 PM
From: Hal Barnett	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10934

DownSouth, *OT* regarding NTAP and CSCO parallels, Back in nearly prehistoric time, 1986, Proteon was the industry leader in routers. Cisco came along with a software solution (multi-protocol) layered on top of the router box. The Cisco focus on software gave them the edge and the hardware-centric Proteon nearly disappeared. Both NTAP and EMC are using software on top of storage hardware to present flexible storage solutions to the market. Your excellent posts on this and the Gorilla thread have helped to establish the coming battleground. It should be a most interesting and profitable time ahead. Thanks again for the great posts. Hal