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""Wes Stevens""  wrote in message
[EMAIL PROTECTED]">news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Peter I have been following and trading Juniper stock for years. In the
> beginning everyone loved it because it was so focused - just high end
> routers. Two things came together in 2000 to help them grow sales 6x over
> 1999 one was the massive build out of the telcos and the other was the
fact
> that they had a year lead on cisco for delivering 192 interfaces. In 2001
> the telco's started cutting back and juniper sales growth went to up 32 %,
> but all of it came in the first half. Since mid year last year sales have
> been dropping qtr over qtr. The biggest reason is the same reason the
> analysts used to love it - focused only on the high end telco market. Well
> the telco's are in a world of trouble. They are so deep in dept that most
> will never climb out. Global xing bit the dust and it looks like wcom may
> follow. Quest is in deep trouble too. Believe it or not the only hope for
a
> recovery in the next year is that these big guys go chapter 11 and then
> reorg. All the investors get screwed but their debt goes away and they may
> have some money to invest again. All of the major telcos cut capex for the
> rest of this year and next in their first quarter report. Juniper's also
has
> to deal with cisco now as they are going after that same market and have
> taken share away in the last year. This will be especially a problem in
> markets outside the us where cisco already has a presence and juniper does
> not. The last two purchases by Juniper say the reconize the problem as
they
> are trying to broaden their product line. But they paid too much for
> Unishere and it will be dilutive this year.
>
> The bottom line is that the big telcos are in real trouble and there is
> still a lot of competition and excess capacity out there. Their capex
> spending is going to be the last thing to recover and along with it
Juniper.
>
> Another good indication is in the job market. Go to dice.com or hotjobs
and
> do a search on jncie and ccie and see what you get for both.

Oh God, my fingers just got so itchy when you said that.  I wrote an entire
book about this on this newsgroup just a few months ago (and elicited a
firestorm of protest for which I and many other people here still bear the
scars).  So if you want the entire spiel, go look for some of my old posts
in the archives.


And I think just heard a big whoosh from the guys who I sparred with in the
past are now all collectively slapping shaking their heads because they
realize I'm just about to get into it again.  Fear not guys, I'll try to
make it short as I possibly can, for both your and my sanity.

Basically job value has to do with basic economics and how it pertains to
the supply and demand of labor.  True, there are many less Juniper jobs.  So
there is less demand  On the other hand, there are many many less
Juniper-trained people.  You can't just look at demand.  There's no such
thing as a "law of demand".  There is only "the law of supply and demand".
You must factor in both supply and demand before you can say whether
something is more or less valuable than something else.

And from the evidence I've seen, it looks like while the demand for Juniper
skills is obviously lower than the demand for Cisco skills, the supply of
Juniper skills is proportionately even lower, such that the overall value of
Juniper skills is higher.

Or I'll put it to you another way.  Doctors make more money than cashiers.
But why?  Clearly there is a greater demand for cashiers than doctors.  You
mentioned going to public places like the Internet or the newspapers and
looking for mentions of JNCIE or CCIE.  OK, I can do that for doctors and
cashiers and I think we'll both agree that I'm going to find many many more
mentions for cashiers than for doctors.  Makes sense too.  How many times do
you seriously injure yourself vs. how many times do you buy something in the
store?   Right.  So since there is clearly more demand for cashiers than for
doctors, can we simply conclude that doctors are screwed and they should all
be cashiers? Exactly.  So what's going on here?  Simple - supply and demand.
Surely there is less demand for doctors.  But on the other hand, there is
corresponding even lower supply.    The same thing holds for UNIX vs.
Windows admins (UNIX admins make better money on average than Windows boxes,
yet there are many fewer UNIX jobs).  Lower demand is swamped by even lower
supply.  This is why diamonds (which nobody really needs except for maybe my
ex, but diamonds are rare) are more expensive than, say, drinking water
(which everybody needs, but is plentiful).

So how can I prove the this is also true for Juniper/JNCIE.  Short answer, I
can't, at least not rigorously (on the other hand, the opposite - that
Cisco/CCIE skills are more valuable - cannot be rigorously proved either).
I have to rely on public datapoints and extrapolate.  So bear with me.

There are 65 JNCIE's in the world today compared to about 7500 CCIE's.
That's a ratio of 120:1.   Therefore for the value of CCIE skills to be
greater, the demand for CCIE skills has to greater than 120:1.  Is it?
Maybe, but I doubt it.  Look at new installations.  Cisco is in line to sell
about $20 billion of gear this year, whereas Juniper will probably sell
about $750 million.  That's a ratio of only  27:1.  Ok, true, Cisco also has
a large installed base (but don't forget, Juniper also has an installed base
now), so maybe I can give Cisco some credit of maybe 2X or 3X for this
effect?  OK, so now we're still talking 27 x 3= 81?  Still haven't reached
120.

And on the other hand, I think Cisco should be penalized with a negative
multiplier because much of the gear it sells is low-end and used in simple
networks, where quite frankly you don't need a CCIE.  For example, you don't
need a CCIE to configure 2 routers over a T-1.  Juniper's routers are, in
contrast, generally used in more complex networks (the provider) where
technical skill is more critical.

Furthermore, much of what Cisco sells, the average CCIE has no idea how to
use.  How many CCIE's are really expert in using, say, the ONS-series of
ADM's and DWDM stuff?  Or MGX/BPX Stratacom stuff (those old-school
WAN-CCIE's excepted)?   Compare that to Juniper, where they sell just one
line of stuff, and the JNCIE is (or really should be) proficient in all of
them.   So it's really not fair to include all of Cisco's revenue and
installed base for a CCIE value-analysis when much of that gear consists of
boxes that the average CCIE has no idea how to use.


The point is simply this.  You can choose to be in a market that has lots of
jobs, but also lots of competition for those jobs.  Or you could be in a
market with less jobs, but less competition.  Which is the right choice?
Difficult to say, really depends on how much less jobs and how much less
competition and so forth.  But surely you can see where I'm going with this.
A simplistic look at demand where you just look at the number of available
jobs is meaningless unless you also look at the number of people who can do
those jobs.   Public sites like Monster and Hotjobs tell you about demand
but tell you nothing about supply.


>
>
> >From: "Peter van Oene"
> >Reply-To: "Peter van Oene"
> >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >Subject: Re: How do I approach the company about my CCIE [7:40261]
> >Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 08:43:09 -0400
> >
> >What leads you to believe that they "will be at the tail end of the
> >recovery?"
> >
> >At 09:04 PM 5/27/2002 -0400, Wes Stevens wrote:
> > >Jenny I assume you are talking about Juniper. I really don't know
> >anything
> > >about their cert. The company I know pretty well. I would not want to
be
> > >looking for a job in this market place with only Juniper experience.
> >Juniper
> > >will not go away for sure, but they will be at the tail end of the
> >recovery
> > >at best.
> > >
> > >
> > > >From: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
> > > >Reply-To: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
> > > >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > > >Subject: Re: How do I approach the company about my CCIE [7:40261]
> > > >Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 19:15:12 -0400
> > > >
> > > >"A CCIE is still the highest networking cert and the only one that is
> >not
> >a
> > > >
> > > >paper cert. "
> > > >
> > > >I'll save nrf the trouble of saying this.
> > > >Highest networking cert?  Arguable.  Depends how you define
"highest".
> >But
> > > >it's certainly not a totally unreasonable claim.  Only one that is
not
> >a
> > > >paper cert?  Hardly.  Try doing a little more research.
> > > >However, if you substitute "Cisco" for "networking" in your original
> > > >sentence, it looks far more accurate.
> > > >
> > > >Cisco is not the only player, or even the only significant player, in
> >the
> > > >networking game.
> > > >
> > > >JMcL
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >----- Forwarded by Jenny Mcleod/NSO/CSDA on 28/05/2002 08:39 am -----
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >"Wes Stevens"
> > > >Sent by: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > > >27/05/2002 11:40 pm
> > > >Please respond to "Wes Stevens"
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >         To:     [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > > >         cc:
> > > >         Subject:        Re: How do I approach the company about my
> >CCIE
> > > >[7:40261]
> > > >Is this part of a business decision process?:
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >If you look at Cisco over the last 18 months compared to it's
> >competitors
> > > >it
> > > >has done well. It's sales have dropped much less then most other
> > > >networking
> > > >companies and they have actually gained market share in all major
> >areas.
> > > >The
> > > >major telco's built out way too fast and the growth did not come like
> >they
> > > >
> > > >expected. But on the enterprise side companies took it a lot slower.
> >This
> > > >economy is starting a slow recovery. Next year things will pick up.
It
> > > >will
> > > >never be like 1999 as you say, but we will get back to the point
where
> > > >there
> > > >will be plenty of jobs.
> > > >
> > > >A CCIE is still the highest networking cert and the only one that is
> >not a
> > > >
> > > >paper cert. We have seen a lot more numbers comming out these days,
but
> > > >Cisco doubled the number of lab seats in San Jose and RTP back in
> >March.
> > > >Add
> > > >to that the one day lab and Sat and Sun testing and there are a lot
> >more
> > > >people taking the test. Cisco keeps track of the passing percent and
> >will
> > > >adjust the challenge of the lab if necessary. The other thing is we
> > > >probably
> > > >will see major changes in the lab before the end of the year. When
they
> > > >get
> > > >rid of token ring who knows what goodies they will replace it with.
It
> > > >will
> > > >take a while for the boot camps to adjust their programs to the new
> >topics
> > > >
> > > >and the candidates that take the self study route will be searching
for
> > > >ways
> > > >to cover the new material. There will be a big slow down for a while
at
> > > >that
> > > >point.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >I guess my point is I do not see the value of the CCIE going the way
of
> > > >the
> > > >microsoft certs. Thing will get better next year and the demand for
> >CCIE's
> > > >
> > > >will raise.
> > > >
> > > >[snipped]
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
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