Omar Sultan Mar 28, 2009

Kash:

Good points.  I think when companies get more obsessed with their competition than their customers, they run into trouble.  However, I firmly believe Cisco, HP, and IBM have sufficiently customer-centric cultures for this to not be a problem.  Sure, the industry is evolving which will create churn, but but I think each company will adapt and continue to find ways to grow, as they have done in the past.

Omar
Cisco

Kash Shaikh Mar 28, 2009

Santanu,

Glad you liked my post & I agree wholeheartedly that healthy competition is good for our customers.

Now about the contradiction, it may appear as contradictory on the surface but the point here is that some of the media coverage, as you correctly pointed out, made it sound as if our main intent with UCS announcement & entry in to adjacent market space is to go after competition or declare a war so to speak, clearly this is not the case.
The intent here is to provide customers with more choices with an innovative solution to address their pain points in data centers. Now does that mean we will not compete with HP (and others) in order to provide more choices in that particular space? without mincing words, the reality is we will increasingly compete with HP, however, at the same time we will continue to partner with HP in some other areas to address the needs of our mutual customers.

Regards,
-Kash

Santanu Ganguly Mar 28, 2009

Thanks Kash.

I think your point was clear enough in your first post. Personally, IMHO, Cisco does tend to invoke a semi-intimidating effect among its Competitors/Partners sometimes. Their history of dynamic success in almost every space they have invaded speaks for itself. Hence, I shall not be surprised if even while displaying a spirit of healthy partnership on the surface, some of Cisco’s “partners/competitors” do take this as an ominous sign of being gobbled up ....same as a shoal of sardines would in presence of a friendly killer whale…not that i am comparing HP/IBM with sardines or Cisco with Orca

Cheers

santanu

Bill Marozas Mar 31, 2009

I expect a transition period during which more customers wil begin to look to Cisco to serve as the “prime” for their data center projects.  We’ll certainly lead with Cisco DC 3.0 offerings, but will also orchestrate comprehensive DC proposals to include products from our strategic partners like HP and IBM.

toner dolumu Aug 28, 2009

Nice post.