Juniper drops DX load balancing line - what does this mean for Cisco's ACE?

So Juniper is throwing in the load balancing application acceleration towel saying that its DX line is "insufficiently distinguishable from competitors' devices," reports Tim Greene of Network

World. The story cites Juniper as saying: "Our ability to deliver sustained differentiation is the nexus of the opportunity in front of us. We remain fully committed to capitalizing on this opportunity. To this end, Juniper has made the formal decision to end-of-life the DX hardware, software and licenses." DX competes with products from Array Networks, Citrix, Cresendo, F5, Foundry. Cisco is also in the load balancing application acceleration business with its Application Control Engine (ACE), a blade that slides into its Catalyst 6500 switches and performs several functions typically handled by load balancers, compression devices and application-acceleration devices.

Is Juniper dropping DX a sign of trouble in the load balancing corner of the market (and if so, how might this affect Cisco's ACE), or is this a problem specific to Juniper? In Tim's story, one customer said DX, which Juniper acquired from Redline Networks, never seemed integrated fully with Juniper's other products...

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