Cisco builds website dedicated to rubbishing Juniper

Stan Beer
Tuesday, 13 September 2011 18:00

IT Industry - Strategy

Networking market leader Cisco Systems has raised more than a few eyebrows by unveiling a new website specifically dedicated to dumping on its chief competitor Juniper Networks. The move, which breaks one of the cardinal rules of sales and marketing, has shocked more than a few market watchers and caused some to speculate whether Cisco has been unnerved by its rival. (Note: Juniper has issued a response appended to the end of this article)

 

The anti-Juniper site, called www.overpromisesunderdelivers.net, as its name suggests, attempts to create the impression that Juniper is the master of vapourware, announcing products well in advance but failing to deliver them for months and years.

Front and centre is a bold statement:

"Juniper Networks: Not Keeping Its Promises to Customers. Over the last few months, observers have started to ask when Juniper will deliver all the technology innovation it has been promising for years. There's a growing realization that Juniper has regularly overpromised and under delivered in key product areas."

At the top of the one page site is a live constantly updating clock which ticks over the time in years, months, days, hours, minutes and seconds since Juniper has announced key products that have yet to make it to the market.

Such products as the successor to the T1600 core router and Project Falcon mobile vision, which were announced in 2009, but have still not been released are highlighted.

Cisco also has a video on the site and a whitepaper download which attempts to contrast the differences between itself and Juniper.

However, cynical market watchers note that Cisco is under pressure with a stock price going nowhere, while Juniper's stock is on the rise.

Meanwhile, today Juniper announced  is what it claims is the industry's highest edge routing capacity of 3.8 Terabits per second on its Juniper MX 3D Universal Edge Routers. The capacity upgrade applies to all MX Series services, including Juniper's MobileNext, open mobile core for next-generation wireless networks.

The new level of throughput, according to Juniper, requires only an in-service switch fabric upgrade to existing MX Series chassis.

For its part, Juniper is playing it cool and refusing to be drawn into a slanging match, although there was a slight sting in its tail:

'We're not going to comment on a competitor's publicity stunt. Customers tell us they want an alternative to the legacy approach, and we're focused on delivering innovation for them. It appears as if Cisco has once again lost focus,' David Shane, VP, Global Corporate Communications, Juniper Networks.