Is Celox Farewell an Omen?

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sdk 12/4/2012 | 9:08:00 PM

re: Is Celox Farewell an Omen? Well done!

I do think another 6-8 months would have produced PO's from both Asia and Europe - the domestic front is a toss up, but the RBOC providers looked to be migrating to a centralized BRAS architecture, which looked great on our platform.

One other item: make sure your 1.0 software set can make easy money in most of the markets - start with BRAS and then add MPLS, etc. Coming out with features like MPLS LER is impressive and critical in an RFP, but didn't seem to have enough real uptake in the market to generate PO's in the near term.

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lightlogic 12/4/2012 | 9:07:58 PM

re: Is Celox Farewell an Omen? Lafite,

Thanks for sharing the info. Sounds exactly like what the CEO and CFO of Celox would do. If they weren't going to make any money, then forget it. Greedy bastards.

It is very sad hearing this news, especially if the product could have been taken forward. I'm sure most employees would agree.

I'm curious as to the response from the BOD. Didn't this get floated past the board?

Can you expand any further on this? How many employees would have stayed on at Celox? Would have they been required to relocate?

Is there any interest from this unnamed company to buy the IP?

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chief_skeptic 12/4/2012 | 9:07:50 PM

re: Is Celox Farewell an Omen?
Season's Greetings to all my Ex-Celox friends
(and the others who were not my friends, I
think, founders and a few others excepted, the
degree of friendship was inversely proportional
to level in the company.

Those interested in the non-acquisition of Celox
because the price was not high enough may wish to
read:
http://www.visi.com/~skappel/E...
on the ETA supercomputer saga, and how ETA was
killed by CDC.

As another poster said, Celox was great for the
first few months, became progressively less and
less fun as it became more and more like a
"Big Company". Of course the objective of a
company is not to be fun, but it serves no
purpose to eliminate the fun just to give the
illusion of a big company. We got the bad without
any compensating good.

And yes, greed is ugly.

chief_skeptic

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glad2Bgone 12/4/2012 | 9:07:33 PM

re: Is Celox Farewell an Omen? Also - the synopsis of the engineering management team at both sites by the ex Cisco VP hired to evaluate the talent pool and their qualifications would be rather funny if printed. This document, if published, would humble any of the overpaid, underqualified "leaders" we had. No wonder he laughed when offered a position to run the whole thing....

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glad2Bgone 12/4/2012 | 9:07:33 PM

re: Is Celox Farewell an Omen? Lots of bickering, still...even after we've all gotten the boot. Who knows if Curtis screwed us, if hiring Joanne doomed us all, if giving out porsches was a death blow or if it was hiring like there was no tomorrow. Having the two sites definitely hurt our chances (3 including India and the wonderful money speant on investigating a China office was also a drain) but everyone, and I mean everyone is missing the point. The combination of no one wanting the box and the decline in the market spelled failure regarless who was in control and where that site was. I find some of the posts where "a deal was imminent" being the theme humorous. CELOX BUILT SOMETHING EITHER BEFORE ITS TIME OR BUILT SOMETHING NO ONE WANTED. There was a great amount of synnergy (at least from where I was working) between the two sites and the people I worked with on both sides cared and wanted success. It appears to me that the engineering community was not united and NOT taught (or forced) to work as an integrated group. Most of these posts show that clearly. Be it the Curtis click or the Motorola gestapo...this was not "survivor". The powers that ruled and let these issues be created and grow should be ashamed. Having been let go in the 3rd round, I watched the posts and kept an ear to the ground as I hoped for the box and company to succeed. Unfortunately, we had little going on with anyone but a really messed up company with 3 initials (the term everyone loved was traction...this term now means to me "little chance of a PO).

Lets all move on people - we never had a chance. Anyone who thinks so is delusional.... the fact is no-one wants a god box. 6 million subscribers per box?? How many boxes could we really sell??? Bad concept - worse execution. Just the facts...anyone who has a problem with the truth FO

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lightlogic 12/4/2012 | 9:07:32 PM

re: Is Celox Farewell an Omen? glad2Bgone,

Well count me in the "delusional" group. If Cisco or some other established company had this box, do you think they would have been able to sell it? It may have simply been that no one wanted to buy from a startup. But that's what the guys running the company need to recognize, and then make the right moves. Granted it was a tough environment, but I'm very surprised they couldn't get some deal done as far as a sale. Anyone have any clues on why the Alcatel deal died?

I always get a kick out of it when people bring up the six million user thing as a drawback. The point on that was the ability to scale. No one can predict the future, thus the ability to scale is important. I do think the marketing literature shouldn't have stressed that number, there was no reason to do so IMO. Instead it should have just stressed how the architecture was able to scale.

I agree with you that engineering was not united, and again that goes back to those at the top. I'm not sure they had the ability to recognize it.

As far as moving on, that's what we are doing. We're just trying to gain some information about the company we gave our last few years to. Maybe we can learn something from it all. I would like to know more about that document written by the former Cisco VP, for example.

So I disagree when you say we never had a chance. And since I do have a problem with your "truth", I'll go FO now.

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sir-wish-pro-wide-her 12/4/2012 | 9:07:32 PM

re: Is Celox Farewell an Omen? Pardon my ignorance. But what is a BRAS?
Either I am getting old or you must be
visiting Victorias Secret too often.

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glad2Bgone 12/4/2012 | 9:07:31 PM

re: Is Celox Farewell an Omen? I also agree that info on the demise of the Alcatel deal would help everyone. Its probably the most basic of things as these things usually come down to money. Management had a chance to make something out of what was left and it didn't happen.

Probably not enough cake in the golden parachute clause. That would be the cherry on top of this sad fable....

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glad2Bgone 12/4/2012 | 9:07:31 PM

re: Is Celox Farewell an Omen? at least someone agrees with some of the more important points (for a change - its a nice start). There seems to be a lot of speculation on how well the box was received out there. I saw trials that went nowhere, a long list of tier 1 customers we talked to that never took one or signed a trial agreement, boxes leave for "amazing opportunity's" in the far east only to come back UNOPENED.... Basically a massive snow job by sales talking about how a long list of people were interested. What we really did was what...2-3 trials????? No matter how much we talk ourselves up and how wonderfully we talk about the box, the sad fact is that no-one really wanted it. It became evident as the months went by and those trial dates with companies like Sprint and Verizon had a funny way of being rescheduled 20 times. They either didn't want it or we never really engaged with them and sales was just snowing everyone to get people excited.

To summarize - zero revenue and few real opportunities after 3 years is pitiful. The box isn't as wonderful as everyone thinks as we sold none (that were paid for). Not that it doesn't do some amazing things, its just that people outside the company (customers) didn't feel that those things were worth spending money on. The question is: "did we build the right thing"? Cosine has announced 6 new customers in the last year...where were we???

Sorry STL and SBO people...the foot soldiers in each location should commend, not attack each other. Good luck to all

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cyber_techy 12/4/2012 | 9:07:27 PM

re: Is Celox Farewell an Omen? Author: sir-wish-pro-wide-her Number: 62

Pardon my ignorance. But what is a BRAS?
Either I am getting old or you must be
visiting Victorias Secret too often.
=================================================

RAS=Remote Access Server
B=Broadband (Not sure, however)

BRAS=Broadband Remote Access Server (An educated guess)

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