Not Everyone Sold On Cisco Blade Server Plans
When Channelweb.com confirmed Cisco blade server rumors last month, some solution providers welcomed the idea with open arms.
"We think it's a good thing for the market, for us and for Cisco," Jim Kavanaugh, CEO of World Wide Technology, a solution provider and Cisco partner, said in December. "We think it's a big space that has a lot of growth opportunities both short term and long term. I've got quite a bit of confidence in Cisco's management, and when they put their minds to something they make it work. It's going to be interesting how it plays out."
Cisco's official blade server announcement, code-named California, is expected within the next few months, sources have told Channelweb.com. Cisco is said to be building a cluster that will be specifically designed for virtualization, which will reprovision the network when virtual machine workloads are mobilized.
Cisco has remained tight-lipped, not spilling any details of a possible blade server offering, though it would fall right in line with Cisco's Data Center 3.0 vision. Cisco did note that it "will continue to deliver new technologies to help our customers build next-generation data centers."
While it appears solution providers are embracing Cisco's pending entrance into the blade server market, one solution provider has told Channelweb.com that Cisco should quit while it's ahead and keep out of the blade server game altogether. The solution provider, who asked his name not be used, is both a Cisco and HP partner.
"If Cisco actually does this, I think this effort will die a quick and public death," he said. "They'll alienate themselves and harm their existing OEM relationships with HP and Dell, and who's going to buy these or trust Cisco as an unproven server systems vendor? And who wants to buy systems from a vendor providing only partial solutions? Where is the rest of the server and systems family? What kind of story is blades only? And how will Cisco ever compete with the vast investments in value-add that Compaq/HP have built over the last 20 years? Both HP as an innovator, and Dell as an emulator, are both light years ahead of Cisco on the value-add stuff."
The partner continued that Cisco is notoriously overpriced and likely won't be able to cost-effectively compete with HP, even with Cisco's Opportunity Incentive Program (OIP), a discount program for partners.
"I don't need the additional burden of trying to fumble around with Cisco OIP to get them even close to HP's price points. I don't need the extra hassles, and I would not trust my critical systems infrastructure to Cisco. I don't know of any business that would consider paying the Cisco premium in this economy even if they did manage to address all of the obstacles."
While the partner added that he is consistently looking for ways to sell more Cisco gear, a Cisco blade server offering will not be one of them. He noted, however, that he would consider a Cisco blade server option if Cisco and HP were to ever merge, which is incredibly unlikely.
"I have a strong gut feeling that this is a shortsighted, knee-jerk reaction by [Cisco CEO John] Chambers and team to solve their sales problems and it will, in the end, only further erode Cisco's profitability," the solution provider said. "This is really shortsighted. Sure, it's an opportunity, but so is selling cars, but that doesn't mean I'm going into the auto manufacturing business tomorrow."