John Chambers has the whole technology industry buzzing. He predicts "Brutal times" ahead for the technology industry where by 2018, only two to three of the current "Big Five" (Cisco, HP, IBM, Oracle, Microsoft) will be left standing . When the 900 pound gorilla of networking starts roaring and beating its chest from the top of the Empire State building something is up, but what is it? Do we really believe that there is a biblical flood coming that will wipe out life as we know it in high tech leaving only the largest and slowest technical laggards to inherit the earth? This is clearly the world that John Chambers wants us to believe will be the 2018 reality. But why?
Very simply John Chambers is playing the only hand he has left, SIZE. There are some I suppose who still believe that despite medical marvels and technology that it matters. But really what option does Cisco have to employ besides that? They are no longer the nimble technical innovator that they were two decades ago and their end to end story is rife with bullet holes as a result of advances in SDN and "Whitebox" switches that threaten the very foundation upon which their customer control and margin are built. Chambers calls for "Brutal" times ahead and he probably knows what he is talking about because he was the VP of North American Operations at Wang Laboratories when their proprietary end to end business was obliterated by a whole new generation of standards based computing and networking solutions from small innovative companies like Microsoft, Apple, Cisco Systems, 3Com Corporation, Synoptics Communications, Sun Microsystems, Novell Software and so many others. And guess what, corporations started purchasing and building solutions from these little guys instead of the Big Boys.
I would like to offer a very different picture of 2018. One where large single source suppliers are rendered obsolete because of a standards and open source based ecosystem. A world where corporations can choose the best tool for the job without fear of being trapped into expensive and proprietary solutions. An era where Corporate IT will be perfectly happy purchasing solutions from smaller technology specialists much the same way they did in 1990 - 1998 before there were any clear "end to end" solution providers. This is the beginning of a renaissance in network computing where true openness inter and intra switch will allow for massive cost savings for both CAPEX and OPEX budgets. This is the future that Chambers doesn't want you to see. And, if history is any judge, the "Big Five" will continue selling what they have until they have no alternative. For some this may mean, mergers or spinning off business units that are not profitable or nimble enough to survive and for others it will mean joining the party a few years late through acquisition or worse yet, arriving to the party a few years late and more than a few generations of features behind.
So, here is Cisco the modern day King Kong, perched on top of the Empire State Building swatting away at the biplanes filling him with tiny bullet wounds, beating his chest and making as much noise as he can to scare his customers into continuing to purchase his expensive end to end solutions. But just like the movie epic, this story will have a similar ending and it's just a matter of time.
