Force10 targets the large installed base of Cisco's end of life Catalyst 6509 chassis

Force10 will sell at a lower price its chassis-based C-Series C300 switch against any new Cisco 6500 Series chassis.

By Brad Reese on Fri, 02/26/10 - 7:33pm.

Back on October 8, 2009, Cisco published again the end-of-sale and end-of life dates for its large installed base of Catalyst 6509 Chassis. Exploiting this formidable opportunity until the end of September 2010, Force10 will sell at a lower price its chassis-based C-Series C300 switch against any new Cisco 6500 Series chassis. Moreover, authorized reseller partners who generate more than $1 million in qualified C300 switch net sales to Force10 will receive an additional 10% cash rebate.

According to Force10, its C300 chassis solution surpasses the density and switching performance of the Cisco Catalyst 6509, supporting 384 line rate GbE ports and 64 line rate 10 GbE ports, in the same footprint as the Cisco Catalyst 4510R.

Force10 C300 Product Matrix:

Naturally, Force10 has HP resellers directly in mind with this promotion, because according to Andrew Stewart - vice president of worldwide channels and sales operations for Force10 Networks:

"We’ve seen ongoing channel disruption since Cisco introduced its Unified Computing System / blade server technology in 2009. It intensified this week with the announcement that Cisco will terminate its channel alliance with HP. We see a fast-emerging opportunity to build relationships with partners that now need an alternative to Cisco."