John Sterlicchi of CIO-Connect has written a fair summary of the "gray market" issues in the Cisco marketplace.
Cisco gets worried about the "Grey" Market in it's equipment.
I particularly appreciated the background on the origins of the grey market in the 1970s with DEC and Amdahl. There are also some nice quotes from David Willis of Gartner and Network World's own Brad Reese.
I piped up in the article too, but I certainly didn't mean to confuse anyone as the author indicates. I claimed that counterfeit products are a bigger concern than gray market products in the Cisco market. The fact is that no reputable dealer of used Cisco would knowingly pass off used equipment as new, but I should have also clarified that these same reputable dealers are also protecting users from fake equipment. Neither issue should really be a problem for CIOs or buyers of equipment from respectable dealers or Cisco resellers.
Essentially, CIOs only need to worry about Grey and Counterfeit goods when buying at auction or from unreputable resellers. Other than that clarification, Mr. Sterlicchi put forth a nice summary of the opinions on the Cisco gray market.
