Neil Miranda, technology director for the Ministry, says Shorter is incorrect. The call center had nothing to do with the IP network. In an effort to stall Juniper's momentum, Cisco plans to roll out the 12400 Gigabit Switch Router in March. Terabit routing is still a ways off, but by the time Cisco's OC-192c router ships, Juniper will have already had a year's head start. Service providers usually remain loyal to their vendors, which means Cisco may have a difficult time winning back the customers and market share it lost.
Cisco seems to be gaining customers in optical networking, however.
But Cerent is one piece of an optical array cobbled together via various acquisitions. Products obtained from the purchase of Pirelli, Monterey and Qeyton Systems are not enjoying the momentum that the Cerent products are. Cisco's overall market share in optical is minuscule compared with entrenched giants such as Lucent, Nortel, Alcatel, Ciena, Fujitsu and Marconi. Fifty percent of Cisco's workforce has been at the company 18 months or less, Chambers said. As Cisco gets bigger, it loses a little bit more of its identity and unique characteristics.