Joe,
"...would a General Motors, pay a company to compare a 2000 GM car to a 1997 Ford, set up the comparison so the Ford is guaranteed to fail, no representatives from Ford allowed to be present to insure fairness, then publish the report without mentioning anything about the Ford being a 1997 model or that it was paid for by GM and no Ford representatives were present."
In response, let me ask you the following question. Given the above scenario, If during the test, the 1997 Ford ran on only 4 cylinders, could only go 30 MPH, and had limitations about where people could sit, would that make the test inherently unfair? Or would it simply mean that you didn't like the test results? Wouldn't it make you wonder why those limitations existed, and whether they were fixed in current generation products?
For those who follow along in the KeyLabs test, I am referring to the average throughput per port and the aggregate switch throughput tests in 5.2.4 Scalability Test Case 4, and the strange "paired port" limitation for ISL links in 5.1.1 Availability Test Case 1 and other tests.
"It is good to stir the pot and create thorough discussion, but your arguments on many of these issues show a total lack of faith in Ancor, and overly confident feelings about Brocade."
I have certainly stirred the pot. Much more than I had intended to. As I told Larry, that will end today, since I must get back to my regular duties. I do not have overly confident feelings about Brocade, but it is hard to deny that UP UNTIL THIS POINT, they have had better execution. I also do not lack faith in Ancor. I'm simply suggesting that for them to succeed against Brocade, they have to make the case that they have a better product, better support, a better sales team, and better management. Vision and execution are the keys to ANY successful company.
As far as putting my money where my mouth is, I did that. As I explained earlier, I invested in a little $6 company at the end of 1999, instead of ANCR at $80. The choice was mine, and so far it has been the right choice. That's not to say that ANCR can't or won't go to 100 or 200, or even higher, but for ME, this seemed like a more prudent move at the time. Read Sofa Kingdom's latest post. He worded it very well.
"Now it appears you are coming with some final parting shots, so if it tanks, you can say I told you so."
I do NOT hope ANCR tanks, I hope they succeed. I put three years of my life into Ancor, and if you look back on my tenure here on SI, much of what I said was accurate. Who among us would have thought that ANCR could have a market cap of more than a BILLION dollars! I remember Kerry and I arguing until we were blue in the face that Ancor should be valued at $220 Million, since that's what Cisco paid for a small Gigabit Ethernet startup. (The name escapes me.) We would have been thrown in the looney bin if we had postulated a billion dollar market cap at that time. My opinions certainly weren't always popular, but some things I said were pretty close to being on target.
"We all saw what happened to Ed when he went from Bull to Bear and wanted everyone to sell. I hope this isn't happening to you in a milder form."
Hopefully, one difference between Ed and I is that I have openly stated my position in ANCR (none), my background (an ANCR veteran), my goal (to see Ancor succeed, hopefully at the expense of Brocade), and my style (confrontational). I do not believe the price of ANCR will go down appreciably, and certainly not down to a level where I could muster the finances necessary to take a decent sized position, unless something is very seriously wrong somewhere. And at this point, there seems to be no evidence of that. Even A_Rapport has been mute since his failed prediction(s) on Yahoo.
The reason I chose to post is that the meaningful discussion seem to have vanished, even with a lot more information available than there used to be. Despite what most people think, information is not knowledge. (Witness Yahoo)
Craig |
