* Network World's shelfware package - and a request
There’s a great package of stories in Network World this week focusing on “shelfware,” equipment that users bought with high hopes but ended up relegating to a shelf.
In particular there is the story of Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, which laid out $150,000 on a core LAN switch (made by a company that the CIO declined to name). The CIO wanted to improve security on the college’s network, but after three months the vendor told him it wouldn’t work unless he bought all new edge switches.
After some aborted negotiations, the college decided to go with Cisco for a full network upgrade and put the switch up for sale on eBay.
Another story also involves Cisco – but in this case, Cisco’s software is the shelfware. A senior network engineer for the state of Indiana says he is generally a satisfied Cisco customer. He uses CiscoWorks for management, but he bought an add-on that didn’t add a whole lot. So he abandoned using it, and stuck to the main CiscoWorks software instead.
Do you have examples of products that became shelfware in your organization? It could be a switch, router, or software – anything that you or someone in your group thought would be a great idea and would solve some particular problem you had, but ended up to be more trouble than it was worth.
Let me know and I’ll compile a list of the best stories in this newsletter. If you want to withhold names to protect the innocent (or guilty), let me know.
