I think it was a good move to announce during Cisco LIVE. Customers worship Cisco, not just for the products, solutions, architectures they develop, but also for this week long party where they receive gifts and gadgets, and soak up some of the most technical content in the industry, but most importantly can be around like-minded individuals. That is the most important thing for those that are technically inclined and is often not understood by those who aren’t “down in the weeds.”
So we need to remember, while there are many startups in the SDN space (BigSwitch, Nicira, Embrane, etc. just to name a few), each one is going after a niche, and who knows, will maybe expand from there. My hope for Cisco is to fully commit or let a market go as it pertains to SDN, so we don’t see another CIUS happen (as Balaji already pointed out). I’d rather see the BEST in a given area. It sounds like they are going after SP first because they can monetize those solutions first, but I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
Thanks,
Jason (@jedelman8)