joe, thanks for the help. I'll take a look at those news group but they are real pain to use - havn't used them in ages. All these companies - msft, compaq, oracle etc. - don't put up any helpful info. for technical people. I guess that's how they can charge you big bucks for support.
Here is an article which mentions coms, and now coms gets a compaq/digital insiders, we should be in a better position to compete with them.
*******************************************************
Goodbye to Digital, howdy
Compaq East
By Tim Greene and Marc Songini
Network World, 7/13/98
Littleton, Mass. - B.J. Johnson is home again.
He is moving back into the same King Street office
building in Littleton, Mass., where he started Digital
Equipment Corp.'s network systems integration
business 14 years ago, and will even be working on
the exact same floor.
This time, though, he is establishing an East Coast
network outpost for Compaq Computer Corp. in the
form of the new Network and Access
Communications (NAC) group. The unit, to be
headquartered in New England, will spearhead the
company's bid to be the major player in networking.
The East Coast move and details of the division are
expected to be announced in several weeks.
Despite the bold move, Compaq doesn't plan to
become a leader by challenging companies such as
Cisco Systems, Inc. and 3Com Corp.
product-for-product, Johnson said.
Rather, Compaq will pick and choose the gear it
needs to ensure quality of service across LANs and
WANs and to focus on key vertical markets such as
manufacturing and finance.
Compaq also hopes to establish beachheads with
ISPs by offering hardware that will let ISPs offer
IP-based virtual private network services.
Part of Compaq's plan includes leading customers of
Digital's Network Solutions Integration Services
(NSIS) to the network promised land. Compaq
bought Digital, including NSIS, earlier this year.
That means developing hardware and software that
lets Digital users assign priorities to applications at
the desktop and have the rest of the network give
them the same priority.
"We have a Digital installed base, which we clearly
want to pull forward and move into the concept of
end-to-end communications at the application level,"
Johnson said.
To do that, Compaq will not need to develop ATM
switching because Compaq has settled on Gigabit
Ethernet for enterprise backbones, Johnson said.
And Compaq has no interest in supplanting Cisco as
the preeminent router maker. "We don't need to do
anything that somebody else is really good at," he
said.
Instead, Compaq will continue its philosophy of "buy
if you can, build if you must." Other vendors already
make many products that bear the Compaq label -
including Compaq Gigabit Ethernet switches, which
are made by Extreme Networks, Inc. "I only invent
that which I cannot get on the outside. Anything we
design and do is with the intent of setting us apart
from other people," Johnson said.
Ashok Kumar, an analyst with the Piper Jaffrey
consultancy in Minneapolis, took a harsher view. He
said Compaq has no unified vision for networking,
and its strategy is a matter of "trying to stitch
together different vendors. Nevertheless, there is a
great opportunity here for the company on the
vendor-integration side," Kumar said.
The office here, which Johnson calls Compaq East,
represents Compaq's first major outpost outside
Texas. Because Compaq has already pumped dry the
talent in Houston and Austin, Johnson said he hopes
to draw new expertise from the network-savvy local
work force.
"It's analogous to moving to Silicon Valley," said
Frank Dzubeck, president of Communications
Network Architects, Inc., a consultancy based in
Washington, D.C. "There is a much more ready pool
of people up in New England. Especially LAN
people, which is what he was after."
Locating NAC here will also help smooth out
Compaq's absorption of Digital's NSIS and provide a
convenient spot to deal with Cabletron Systems,
Inc., Johnson said. With its Digital purchase,
Compaq inherited an NSIS obligation to buy $1.1
billion worth of gear from Cabletron over the next
three years. Johnson said he will reveal next month
that shopping list and whether the equipment will be
labeled with Compaq or Digital logos (NW, June 29,
page 1).
In the meantime, Johnson will move back into the
same building, with his NAC group, which will
include Compaq's remote access unit, formerly
Microcom, Inc.; its network interface card business,
formerly Thomas-Conrad; and its low-end switching
unit, formerly Networth. While Johnson's office is in
the same building, and on the same floor, it has one
key advantage: "It has a better view this time," he
said.
Senior Editor Robin Schreier Hohman contributed to
this report.
nwfusion.com
Mang |
