re: Cisco May Pocket ProcketAnother long-time procket employee heard from.
You guys have a lot to be proud of. You burned through more money than most people could imagine, you set a record for in-fighting and backstabbing that few could match and then cisco rides to the rescue right before you go bankrupt.
Cisco doesn't want or need the product. And it sure doesn't need a bunch of whiny egomaniacs who can't get along with each other, let alone a buyer.
re: Cisco May Pocket Procket Lets keep this reasonably close to the truth.
Procket has a handful of small customers.
Carriers are not rushing out to buy procket systems.
The idea that the HFR is 18 months behind in testing vs. procket is false. The idea that procket is 100% tested and totally proven out is equally false. As far as 90% of carriers are concerned, neither system is proved out.
Further, cisco is not in a crisis vs. the T-640 that requires them to deploy an unproven procket system. The CRS received a big yawn from most carriers, but so did procket. Neither has anything very compelling to offer anyone.
re: Cisco May Pocket Procket"Say what you want about Procket but the fact is, the box works and people are buying it." If things to be as you've described them then why Procket went on with the sale of the company? The reality seems to be far from your picture - no paying customers, no revenue, running out of cash.
re: Cisco May Pocket ProcketWatcher10: Pretty harsh response. I'm not a Procket employee and never have been. Second, you are right: lots of cash burned through, ridiculous founder/management clashes, lots of intrigue, lots of nonsense. Absolutely, you're right.
But let's stick to the point. CSR is very late, and still needs quite a bit of work before it's ready for market. Again, probably about 18 months of trials. Meanwhile, Juniper is taking share and having the best quarter of its existence, expanding into other Cisco markets as far as the CPE. Cisco meanwhile is playing defense. Cisco needs to do something to show the world that it is a technology leader, not just a finance and operations leader. That they are not the IBM of networking. And they need to defend the core. I think buying Procket would do that for them.
Let's see what happens. If any of these rumors are true, there should be an announcement of some kind in the next couple of weeks, maybe sooner. I bet Foundry makes a strong move and renders this debate moot.
Let me guess, are you working for a company in MV, specifically JNPR?
My view is that being late or ahead at some specific point in time is not really important; what is critical a long-term strategy. JNPR is currently is moving away from their traditional startegy of focus. If they will not execute well on it, they can be another Bay or 3COM.
re: Cisco May Pocket ProcketWhat people forget sometimes is that the engineers chose cisco back in the days because it was pretty much the only good solution. I truly believe that most engineers who end up playing with juniper routers preffer them over cisco. Especially the M/T series.
Don't start comparing Juniper with 3com or bay. Juniper has solid products and the engineers like it.
Any engineer who played with JunOS will tell you it's better than IOS.
At least now people will give a chance to their new products. I'm happy that I will now have a low-end solution that will be 100% compatible with my backbone.
I'm just waiting for them to buy force10 and get some layer2 going on.
re: Cisco May Pocket ProcketFrom the same source of GigaOm: "Looks like Procket Networks might have walked away from its handshake deal with Cisco and instead gone into the embrace of Foundry Networks. Clearly, Cisco would be pissed off because of such a development."
re: Cisco May Pocket Procket Nothing has appeared yet to confirm that cisco ever had a handshake agreement with procket let alone that procket walked away from it.
GigaOm is doing lots of guessing with very little information. Though he was first, the CNET and Network World articles both seemed to have access to better sources than he has shown so far.
re: Cisco May Pocket Procket"You burned through more money than most people could imagine, you set a record for in-fighting and backstabbing that few could match and then cisco rides to the rescue right before you go bankrupt."
Pretty unfair criticism, but the kind you see a lot on these message boards. Lets face it, EVERY company in the telecom bubble spent massive amounts of money. Didn't Lucent spend almost a billion dollars for a core router company? And most companies have some jockying for power at some time in their lives, usually making Procket's look pretty tame, especially considering the difficult environment Procket is in post-bubble.
In fact, ANY company that was created in the overspending telecom bubble and can manage to survive post-bubble in any form, and that includes getting bought, usually has something really going for it. My understanding (only second hand hear-say) is that Procket has some excellent technology.
re: Cisco May Pocket ProcketI think it is pretty stupid to portray Cisco or Juniper as the perfect solution. Both of the vendors have positives and both have negatives. In some situations one might work better than the other, but not in all situations..
If I were to buy a router today, which one would I select? hmmm... Juniper or Cisco? I'm a 6500/SUP720 fan. This is what I have deployed and I'm comfortable with. However, I do know people that love the M-series from Juniper and have deployed that and like it. At the end of the day both work just fine. From the negative side both vendors have a list of issues... so sometimes the conversation turns into which one sucks less :-)
As for Cisco buying Procket.. I think this somewhat makes sense. If Cisco was an initial investor, it is probably trying to buy whatever they tried to invest in the first place. Makes sense to me. Whatever that is, we'll just have to wait and see.
You guys have a lot to be proud of. You burned through more money
than most people could imagine, you set a record for in-fighting
and backstabbing that few could match and then cisco rides
to the rescue right before you go bankrupt.
Cisco doesn't want or need the product. And it sure doesn't need
a bunch of whiny egomaniacs who can't get along with each other, let
alone a buyer.