More heads to roll
IBM-isation continues.
Cisco says it will continue its push into the services space as its revenues were once again down slightly. Switchzilla told investors on Wednesday that even in a "challenging business environment" globally, it was not going to change its plans to focus on automation, security and analytics as it moves away from its …
Happy to find a Cisco 800 Series router in the rubbish. Fabulous hardware that cost a fortune, but soon enough found why it was there.
At first I was encouraged that the Cisco had a GUI for setting it up. After trying it I realise these guys have never, ever, seen a Netgear router's GUI.
Whoever wrote the Cisco PC Express GUI seems to have assumed that everyone who'd use it had the exactly the same versions of Java and Flash as he'd had on his computer. In other words, in my case, the GUI worked up to a point and then just stopped.
I gather from people who know about these things that Cisco are noted for good customer support -- they'd better be.
You missed the point.
Cisco, Juniper, etc live and breathe their own "air" - the air of arcane wizardry required to configure their devices. That "air" is self-sustaining through a ladder of certifications which people strive to achieve and promptly lose if they do not renew them to be informed of the latest and greatest spellz.
If there are any GUIs and anything user friendly it is an afterthought and it is not intended for day-to-day use. So your expectation of GUI is laughable :)
If Netgear or any other consumer company took this approach they would have been bankrupt in one quarter.
Coming back to the topic at hand - the decimation and IBM-ization currently under way. Chuck has completely missed the plot here. The sole reason Cisco is capable of maintaining its revenue flow is because of its breadth - the moment you voluntarily retreat from an area to "concentrate on services" you have to start making concessions so your stuff is less arcane. The more areas you retreat, the less arcane your stuff becomes in general and the more you are forced to provide a sensible wrap around it usable for mere mortals. If he keeps trimming at this rate there will be a break point after which people will say WTF and start seriously looking at less arcane means of achieving the same which do not require a CCXX certification to do so.
They will not look at services because to-service transition is successful only if you had vertically integrated product top-to-bottom (as IBM, Unisys, etc had). Cisco never ever had any top-to-bottom integration - its products always occupied only one particular layer. You have to expand that to a vertically integrated stack first (or simultaneously) and THEN service transition - not something he is doing.