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Technology Stocks : Cisco Systems, Inc. (CSCO) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jach who wrote (22578)	2/15/1999 10:06:00 PM
From: jach	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 77397

More and more competitions, another big player. First IBM, now Compaq. The products seem to be better than all the competitors including CSCO. Considering CPQ channels and VARs, it will give quite a competition to other GBit and LAN switch vendors. ========================== February 15, 1999, Issue: 829 Section: CRN Test Center Smart, fast Compaq gigabit switch delivers The CRN Test Center gave its Editors' Choice award for enterprise switches to the SW5450 Gigabit Enterprise Switch from Compaq Computer Corp. The product outperformed other units by a wide margin and is accompanied by a set of useful, intuitive management tools. The company's supporting channel program makes selling the product easy and profitable. The Test Center requested Layer 3 Gigabit Ethernet switches that incorporate an emerging technology still not fully deployed among such products. While most vendors currently offer many Layer 3 capabilities, IP routing still is unavailable in the reviewed products from 3Com Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co., as well as from Cisco Systems Inc. These vendors plan to incorporate the technology this year. And although one of the technology's earliest pioneers, the Bay Networks division of Nortel Networks, had a qualifying product in its Accelar enterprise switch line, the company declined to participate, citing concerns about the life cycle of its products when competing against the newer generations of Layer 3 products from Compaq and Lucent Technologies. Nortel is working on its next-generation Layer 3 routing switches. In the channel, all vendors offer top programs brimming with service and support benefits. Switch resellers are sure to enjoy full lead generation, market development funds and a profusion of spiffs and rebates. The major difference the Test Center found was in estimated reseller margin: Compaq's margin was surprisingly low at 8 points to 14 points in a group that averaged about 16 points and at the high end touched 25 points. Compaq mostly shined on technical merits. The bottom line is that selling the Compaq product means ever more attention to the service side of the sale-not that there is anything wrong with this, but it is definitely something that needs to be kept in mind. Fortunately, Layer 3 switches hold the potential for resellers to offer innumerable services ranging from initial installation and setup to periodic monitoring and performance tune-ups. And of course, margin is not the only channel program element to consider. All the vendors in this roundup emphasize positioning Gigabit Ethernet switches to midsize and large enterprises, but only a few require authorization and certification. More vendors should require this to ensure quality installation and service. VARs should look before they leap; all vendors but Compaq and HP have somewhat strict reseller authorization requirements. All four Gigabit Ethernet switches in this roundup were proven capable of Layer 2 packet forwarding rates equal to the maximum potential for the technology, and all did so with zero packet loss. Differences were seen in latencies introduced by the switch while it sets up the circuits between ports. The shortest average latency (and therefore the best) when testing 20 of its Fast Ethernet ports and its two Gigabit Ethernet ports was offered by the Compaq SW5450, and the longest latency was exhibited by the 3Com CoreBuilder 9000. The Lucent Cajun P550 and HP ProCurve 8000M fell in between. Greater differences were observed in Layer 3 IP routing tests, where the Compaq unit outperformed the Lucent product by a factor of about 65 times. Specifically, the Lucent switch was 65 times slower than the Compaq switch. To put things in perspective, even the slowest Lucent latency measurement was only equal to about 6-thousandths of a second; the blink of an eye takes more time than that. Also setting products apart were management methods and software tools. With the exception of the CoreBuilder 9000, which was still in preproduction status when tested, all products offer browser-based access to all or most features. The Web interface inside the Compaq unit was the most attractive, but it did not give full functionality. Conversely, Lucent's interface to the Cajun was less pretty but afforded access to all switch settings. All products featured command-line interfaces (CLIs), with the nod going to HP's menu-driven CLI and its easy-to-use tables. VARs also should look to vendors to do some of the hard work for them. All of the vendors in this roundup provide a gratis network design review program. Particularly with complicated networks, the more eyes the better. Finally, there has been talk in the industry about Compaq exiting the networking peripherals business. Nothing could be further from the truth, said a Compaq spokesperson. These rumors undoubtedly emerged when several weeks ago the company realigned the products formerly in its Network Access Communications Division to more efficiently accommodate delivery of total solutions to IT departments. For example, switches and remote access servers are now grouped with servers under the Enterprise Computing Group. ---- SW5450 Gigabit Enterprise Switch Price: $12,995 Company: Compaq Computer Corp. Location: Houston (800) 345-1518 www.compaq.com Copyright ® 1999 CMP Media Inc.