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Loading ...This one’s been rolling for a little while. Normally I’d let it ride, but under it rests something that is pretty important for us ‘network for a living’ people. Orange County Business Journal ran a piece that featured Michael Pocock of Cisco. Network World took that as a sign of a potential shift in branding. - That spread out to places like Network Ninja and others. In the end of July, engadget did a whole its off… oh no its not… Most amusing.
Cisco has had fun with brand names since the days of Cisco Pro (the brand created when Cisco started its push into the reseller and medium size business space back in the mid 90’s). To be very frank, I don’t really care what name is on the box. The question is how does it do in the network?
However, mulling that over has lead me to realize that we should care what name is on the box. Brands are indicators of what something intends to be like. There is a big difference between a consumer piece of kit and a business piece of kit. Unconvinced? Try taking a consumer printer and putting it in a office and seeing just how long it lasts…
In recent weeks I’ve had run-ins with a few piece of consumer networking gear. One was. access point in a large office, which needed a full reload every time one piece of configuration changed - taking the network down for a good few minutes each time. I can see why there is pressure on Cisco both to sink the Linksys name and to keep it. However, as users, we really should be encouraging the vendors to keep it clear which product category things are in. Names help there.
Hi Benjamin,
Great Write-up. Something that came to mind reading your post is that branding which ties into the whole marketing and advertising “thing” really isn’t directed at us networkers because we are expected to know what products fit where.
Branding (the name on the box) is directed at the end-user be they Consumer, Small Office & Home Office (SOHO), Small & Medium Business (SMB), Mid-Market, Enterprise or Government.
My thinking is that Cisco is trying to develop an end-to-end range of products (under the same brand stable) to cater for the entire market. So that if Mr. Enterprise wants his home Networked he can use and rely on the same Cisco that he uses at the Office albeit the Home versions and not the 7200 that they have at the office.