Many many moons ago, Cisco was a switch and router company. Then Cisco decided to make two strategic purchases and these two companies were:
- Aironet (access points)
- and later Airospace (wlan appliances, aka wireless controllers).
Fast forward to today, they laid off all the texas and ohio teams, including the WiMax teams.
And we watched as all that talent left (every layoff) and went to:
Aruba
Juniper
Ruckus
Spider
Mist
Startup
Startup
Startup
Cisco basically gave their wireless business away.
This happened because Cisco was billing itself as a cloud company, but a cloud company that did not have a cloud (nonetheless).
So, what could Cisco do?
They had no choice. They did not know what their customers would want cloud or wireless is what they thought and they bought yet another company (Meraki).
They looked it as a binary choice.
Other companies are looking at the complete solution: cloud, wireless, customer support, delivery, execution.
Cisco still offers two products that are worlds apart.
The only tangible way that Cisco wireless solutions touch each other is that they both work with Cisco offered appliances that provide flexible management (meaning spending more money on Cisco appliances and services.
However, if we buy into what SHOULD look like a cloud based approach, that SHOULD look a LOT more simpler. It should look like Cloud. And the services SHOULD be part of the cloud. These additional services should NOT be another costly network appliance or VMWare / UCS appliance with more Cisco bloated software.
It should be Meraki cloud.
And the old Cisco has to go in order for Cisco to compete with the same folks that once worked at Cisco (who now work for Aruba and other competitors).
The people that Cisco laid off know. They know something that Cisco does not yet know.
They have vision, strategy, and they have Cisco's brain trust.
Sad to see what has happened to this once great giant.
Cisco, sadly is competing against themselves, while at the same time competing agains others and losing.
And the cost will eventually become unbearable and Cisco will have to decide to let go of one or the other.
I'm pretty sure they will keep Meraki, but it will end up looking a LOT different than it does now. That's for sure.
An excellent post from @1ikn+17CW2zl6, it needed to be on top for more people to see.