Whoops, my apologies. In my analysis, I had stated that Cisco's IPO was in 1986. Actually that is not true, and Cisco was actually founded in 1986, and its IPO was in 1990. I had confused it with Microsoft's IPO in 1986.
Anyway, I believe it makes my analysis even more compelling. Let me summarize. I am making the eminently ridiculous assumption that Cisco has sold $22 billion of gear yearly since its founding, and that all that gear is still being utilized, even the gear that is 15 years old, for a grand total of $330 billion of Cisco gear out there, compared to only $1billion of existing Juniper gear (again, assuming Juniper has existed for only 1 year, which is also completely ridiculous, because Juniper's IPO was actually in 1998). Furthermore, I am assuming that all that Cisco gear is high-end like Juniper's equipment and therefore requires the same level of expertise per dollar sold that Juniper's equipment does (and we all know that's not true - you don't need a CCIE to set up a simple WAN that has a couple of 800's ). Furthermore, none of that gear is 'weird' equipment that average Cisco CCIE's do not know how to use, like ONS-15454 ADM's (which, by the way, Cisco actually has been selling about $1billion annually until the optical bust), or the like. So basically after coming up with the most unfair comparison possible, Juniper still wins out (330:1 according to revenue which is still less than the 380:1 ratio of xxIE's) . To quote Will Smith from the movie Men in Black: "Damn" The key is that a ratio of 380:1 is a large number that is not easily surmounted no matter what assumptions you throw at it. I have thrown some eminently ludicrous assumptions to attack that number, and I still can't beat it. So even though I am a CCIE myself and I hate having to say this, I must admit that if I were given the opportunity of trading my CCIE for a JNCIE, I would have to think about it - for about a microsecond. (Or, for those who continue to harp that it's skills that matter, not certs, let me modify that by saying that I would trade my skills and experience with Cisco routers for an equivalent amount of skill and experience with Juniper routers, how about that?) Simply put, I cannot escape the logic that there is significantly greater demand for Juniper expertise relative to the number of trained Juniper people out there than there is demand for Cisco expertise relative to the number of Cisco trained people. I think the numbers speak for themselves. Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=22100&t=3485 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
