The ABC's of Anybody But Cisco

Back when I was younger and my waist size wasn't bigger then my leg length, we used to have a Dude's code. With stuff like Lt. Uhura being the hottest possible woman alive, Wingman etiquette and girls dated by your close friends are off limits even after they have broken up. Anybody But them. As I traveled along in life, I noticed that same theory of; "Anybody But..." in many things. In circuit design it was Anybody But SSDI, in Football it is Anybody But New England, in cars it's Anybody But Fiat, in TV show casting it's Anybody But Ted McGinley, OK you get the idea here. Anybody But Cisco has been out there for awhile. Heck when I worked at HP, I looked for those folks big time. Not to bash a competitor but because I believed they are open minded, independent and do not go with the flow. I still believe that big time. It just pissed me off to hear folks say; "Nobody gets fired for buying IBM" and close the discussion down. Normally, it was some old Dude wearing a stripped short sleeve button down shirt with a mechanical pencil and click pen in his shirt pocket. It goes both ways though. I believe there are good personal reasons to not buy a vendor's stuff. Most of the time it is because the vendor rep is a total knob, the tech support just sucks or we're taken for lunch at a vegan restaurant. Those are things we learn after being burnt a few times. After awhile Pavlov's theory kicks in and it's Anybody But... But there's other times folks just do not want to recommend a vendors stuff because they are the number one vendor at whatever they do. For example; I live in Milwaukee. Miller Beer is king here. I think it sucks. As a matter of fact, I believe many American beers are just horrible. I love my country. I was in the United States Navy for nearly 10 years, fly a flag in the front yard but under that flag, I am drinking a nice cool Newcastle. Now I admit, I started drinking imported ales because I did not want to go with the flow and do what everybody else was doing. Now for me it's Anybody But Budweiser, Miller.... My question to y'all is this; Do you have a Anybody But...Vendor? So...back to Anybody But Cisco. Are they any ABC'ers out there that just will NOT design with Cisco? It should be no secret that I work at Cisco and have for the past four years. That does not mean I think that everything Cisco makes/touches turns to gold. There are some things we do really good and others that there are better choices out there. All vendors have pros and cons. I just read a few weeks back that my old company, HP just designed a Cisco Free Data Center. Was it for the press of it or because it honestly was the best engineering choice possible? Marketing folks, analysts and politicians are all paid to steer our opinion and incite some kind of emotion. For me it's finding the mix of 50% features, 25% speed, 20% self help tech support, 5% scalability. But of course that changes per customer. That's just what it was this week! Personally, I believe that as an engineer, I owe it to my customers to understand as many possible vendors as I can so I always present them with a design I would be happy to support myself. Cisco makes it easy for sure. Hundreds of books, support sites, valuable certifications and tons of resellers competing for your dollar. But you're going with the flow. Is that a good thing? That is a question that only your experience can answer. Jimmy Ray Purser Trivia File Transfer Protocol Ivan Pavlov had a bunch of dogs he used. Some of their names are Rosa, Mirta, Norka, Trezor, Visgun, Jurka, Jack, John. For a complete list including pixs click on over to: http://dubnaulab.cshl.edu/data/JD_dogs.html