Well, I subscribe to the theory that companies are much more accountable for their own performance within a market than they are for market-wide trends. Cerent and Ciena are therefore much less serious errors than Stratacom.
What I mean by that is Cerent and Ciena (especially Cerent) were especially well-executed, albeit very expensive, strategies in that Cisco did successfully leverage their vaunted sales and marketing force to push those products. Cerent gear is a leading, if not the leading metro ADM solution in the world, and Ciena is perhaps the strongest pure-play optical vendor of all. It's just that the entire optical market has collapsed. In retrospect, it seems obvious that the optical market would collapse based on capacity utilization trends, so you could argue that Cisco should have predicted this and not gotten in, or at least have not paid so much to get in. But I don't think you can hold Cisco totally responsible. They did what they intended to do in that they finally got themselves a credible optical story. It's just that the whole optical market went in the toilet. Compare that to Stratacom, where Cisco achieved basically none of the goals it set out to do. I believe Stratacom has lost share every year since '98 or so. The TGX platform was cancelled more than 2.5 years ago, with nothing on the horizon to replace it, and the MGX 8850 is clearly no match for the latest stuff from the competition. The acquisition was poorly planned and poorly executed. From what I can tell, Cisco garnered basically none of the advantages it thought it would get from the acquisition. This is why Stratacom was such a poor move. Sure, not as bad as, say, Monterey (if they weren't going to use the ONS15900, why buy it?). But still pretty bad. ""Chuck Larrieu"" wrote in message [EMAIL PROTECTED]">news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]... > might one presume that the Cerent acquisition and the Ciena > partnership/investment were considered the future directions in this area? > > Talk about buy high sell low. > > Chuck > > > ""nrf"" wrote in message > [EMAIL PROTECTED]">news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]... > > Exactly. You pretty much hit it right on the head - demand is so low that > > Cisco's decided that not only can it not support a CCIE program, it can't > > even support a CCNA program anymore. > > > > I don't want to be unduly harsh, as I believe all technologies ultimately > > have their proper place. But let's face it. The Stratacom acquisition > > basically sucked for Cisco. Sorry to put it so bluntly, as I know there > are > > some Stratacom experts out there who will object, but you know in your > > hearts that it's true. Cisco hasn't put major development muscle into > the > > Stratacom line ever since the last major hardware refresh, the MGX8850, > > which came out more than 2.5 years ago. Rumor has it that Cisco would > > really like to sell Stratacom off, the problem of course being finding a > > buyer. > > > > ""Paul Jin"" wrote in message > > [EMAIL PROTECTED]">news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]... > > > Also, the big question is, who is going to keep buying stratacom > switches > > in > > > the future? > > > > > > If Cisco thought that the demand for this product was huge, I do not > think > > > they would have cancelled the program. I have heard some reasons why > the > > > CCIE track was cancelled was due to the fact that even people working on > > the > > > switches could not gain access to the equipment, just for the lab > purpose. > > > But why cancel the NP/NA track. > > > > > > Probably, people that needed these boxes already have it. They already > > > either have more than they need for future expansion or since big chunk > of > > > the customers were telcos, they are in bad financial shape or going out > of > > > business. > > > > > > Lucky for me, I only got the the CCNA-Wan part before they cancelled the > > > program. I have other buddies that actually work on our backbone and > they > > > went through to NP. And then it was cancelled. Now they are all > studying > > > routers. > > > > > > - Paul Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=34319&t=34035 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
