Brocade und Cisco – unversöhnlich für immer?

[20-7-04 / p57] In der Juni-Ausgabe des in Paris erscheinenden „Storage Newsletter“ findet sich ein Interview von Herausgeber Jean-Jacques Maleval mit Brocade-CEO Greg Reyes. Wir zitieren aus der Eingangspassage, die sich mit der zunehmenden Rivalität zwischen Fibre-Channel-Platzhirsch Brocade und Angreifer Cisco befasst. Fragt sich nur: Wer ist hier Goliath und wer David?

Maleval: "In our last interview, in May 2001, you said „I would say that the odds of Brocade and Cisco being enemies in the future are low.” Are you still convinced of that today?”

Reyes: "No, I think I was wrong. I did not anticipate at the time that Cisco would fund its own startup, and then acquire it, speaking of Andiamo.”

Maleval: “Do you see Cisco continuing in FC switching technology with such small revenues? I mean, what do you think of the enormous sum Cisco paid to acquire Andiamo?”

Reyes: “It’s interesting. My opinion is that the group of engineers that were the lead engineers for the Catalyst switch development threatened to leave, that to convince them to stay, the CEO agreed to the spin-in, the value of the spin-in was a multiple of revenue, they paid $ 1.3 billion for it. I believe up until that event, Cisco had put a disproportionate amount of effort into making it a success, to maximize the payoff for those individuals. Now that it’s occurred, it remains to be seen how truly committed Cisco is to this space. They’ve found it harder than they thought it would be, I think that they’ve had a difficult time gaining credibility in the minds of customers, and we’ll have to see how committed they remain to this space, it’s unclear to me at this time.”