October 16th, 2008
How Cisco exploits open source
Cisco, facing growing pressure from open source Vyatta (turn your used servers into routers, free), is adding Linux to its routers and hoping partners can help it keep its margins high.
A good example of how this works is the AXP Routers for Branch Offices the company announced in April.
Sashi Kiran, whose title is senior manager – network systems, gave me an update on how this is going today.
The AXP line offers Linux-based integration with a downloadable SDK, targeting an underserved niche.
“Despite the economy we’re seeing a growth in the number of branches and the number of people working in them. Anything we can do in the branch has a definite impact on the cost structure as well as the people experience.”
The AXP line launched with 8 partners and 11 applications. Sounds small until you look at what is involved, as Kiran explained while announcing two new ones, Tiani SpirIT and Global Protocols.
Tiani, which is based in Austria, takes “proprietary formats for medical imaging, integrates it into a single format, and delivers that to a doctor in any facility” under the IHE standards.
Said simply, they can take your MRI as a file and get it right into your doctor’s office, fully integrated with your medical history. Or your x-rays. Or dozens of other scans.
Global “works to military requirements,” bouncing data off space satellites while protecting it from snoops.
Put simply, they can play Osama I see you, getting images back to base (or the White House) in time to make the decision to take him out.
Cool. In both cases.
You can see how the branch office router technology is a pretty small part of the buy here. Cisco sells through both its partners’ reps and its own people. Customers choose which way to go.
Now at this point the fact that those branch office routers run Linux is not what makes the sale.
So Cisco is looking to expand its partnership base with a developer contest, $100,000 in valuable prizes for the best applications that “think inside the box.” (Get it. Inside the box.)
Can’t afford your own Cisco router, Mr. Open Source Developer? Tell you what Mr. Kiran is going to do, and not just becuse he likes you (which he insists he does.)
“Working with VMWare we developed an emulated blade for AXP. They can download that and develop just as if they had a physical module. The coding and testing can be done offline. We are making this available free and it will help engineers speed up the development cycle.”
Let’s summarize. Accelerate development to create more partners, make high-end partners some serious coin, and who do you think the open source guys are going to hit on first when they have ideas to market?
That’s the pitch anyway.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. You can follow Dana on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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