[technion]

I asked our Cisco representative to offer a competing quote against an HP networking deal, and he responded with a quote for Cisco servers, and Ironport mail filtering.

When I asked him what was going on, he pointed out that he only responds to bids he can win. I told him there were no servers in that opportunity, and he went on to discuss that, from a sales point of view, I have a better chance of pushing servers anyway, than pricing Cisco against HP networking. That's from one of their own guys, and it says a lot.

[tw04]

It says HP is trying to buy market share. That strategy doesn't tend to work well long-term when your shareholders catch on.

[epistasis]

I doubt HP is losing a dime on their switch pricing, unless HP is even less efficient than I expect them to be. Other vendors beat HP handily on price with identical hardware specs. Cisco has gotten fat on ridiculous margins, and it's doubtful that they will be able to survive in a marketplace where merchant silicon drives commodity switches.