In the video below shot earlier today, Mike Klayko - Brocade CEO discusses why some will fail and others will succeed in the current difficult economic environment. At the 2:50 time mark, Mike succinctly sums up Brocade's future:
Everywhere Cisco is now, Brocade will be there!
Additionally, Tom Buiocchi - Brocade Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, took the time today to phone yours truly in order to answer a few questions:
 Q: How have the new Cisco Nexus 5000 and 7000 products affected Brocade? |
"Honestly, we do not see much of them in the market today.
"The Nexus line is really not competitive with Brocade directors in the market today, as it’s not shipping in production quality or quantity, and initially supports only classic Ethernet, making it a more direct competitor with some of Juniper’s products and a replacement for the Catalyst switch line from Cisco. We think we may see it supporting both FC and FCoE sometime in 2009 to 2010.
"Also, we do not think it will be sold by storage vendors, so it is highly doubtful that it will be connecting to enterprise storage. Cisco’s MDS product line fills this spot in its portfolio and Brocade clearly has advantages there."
Q: How well did Brocade perform this year and how does it compare to the past?
"Brocade performed very well throughout FY 2008, with revenue of $1.46 billion, double-digit growth of 19 percent year over year, and margins of 62 percent. Q408 also marked 13 successive quarters of Brocade having exceeded the Street's EPS estimates. Clearly, our performance shows that Brocade is a company to be watched and a company on the rise with our greatest opportunities ahead of us."
Q: What led to this performance?
"Our products are leaders in the market. The ramp of DCX continues to be strong. We also had a record quarter in switches and bladed switches. The ramp of our 8G switches, launched in May, further extends our technology lead."
Q: How is the Foundry acquisition shaping up and how will it affect Brocade when closed?
"The Foundry acquisition, which we plan to close this calendar quarter, will help us accelerate growth in a much larger addressable market making Brocade and Cisco the only two companies in the market today with a complete, and that’s the key word, product and solution portfolio stretching from the service provider core to the enterprise branch. A lot of companies have a few of the pieces, but only Brocade and Cisco have everything necessary to build a network from core to branch, including the data center."
Q: What key industry drivers are helping Brocade?
"A number of things are making this the right time for Brocade to grow. First, data centers are undergoing a major transformation, accompanied by massive data growth, increased consolidation, server virtualization and the 'Greening' of the data center. Our products address each of these areas better, technically, and with much better price performance ratios better than others available in the market."
Q: Anything else to add?
"Overall, despite the challenges currently presented by the global economic situation, our customers, our staff and those around us have never been more optimistic about our prospects for the future. We look forward to the year ahead and to making the right moves to advance the capabilities of the data center and of the networking industry overall."
Related story:
8 Gbit/sec switches are key to the standout Brocade 4th quarter
Does Brocade have a good chance of eating Cisco's lunch?
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A Little Research is in Order
Readers wondering about support for FCoE and the Nexus 5000 from storage vendors might want to check out the following links from EMC and NetApp respectively:
http://www.emc.com/about/news/press/2008/20081013-02.htm
http://www.netapp.com/us/company/news/news-rel-20080804b.html
Omar Sultan
Cisco
Comments Focused on Nexus 7000, Not 5000
Please note that Tom's comments above, in response to the question, "How have the new Cisco Nexus 5000 and 7000 products affected Brocade?" were focused on the Nexus 7000. As he said, "The Nexus line is really not competitive with Brocade directors...", with the Nexus 7000 as the implied direct comparison and focus of all subsequent comments in that portion of the post.
We did answer a two-part question with a one-part answer, and apologize for any resulting confusion.