Competitive intelligence report: HP A10500 switch vs. Cisco 6500 switch upgrade

Brad Reese speaks out
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Competitive intelligence report: HP A10500 switch vs. Cisco 6500 switch upgrade
Tue, 8/23/11 - 6:38am View comments

HP's competitive intelligence report on the new Cisco 6500 switch upgrade vs. the HP A10500 switch shows absolutely no mercy whatsoever:

"This announcement which lacks accuracy and material substance is just another sign that their downward spiral is continuing."

Piling on, yesterday Cisco CCIE #9961 R&S - Art Fewell, published the following "bomb shell" about the Cisco 6500 upgrade in Network World:

"So Gainey claims that ~$38k is what it will cost for existing 6500 customers to upgrade to the Supervisor 2T? This is in line with much of the messaging I have seen around the 6500, which clearly promotes the false idea that all a customer has to do is upgrade to the new management module and then they get to take advantage of the latest technology.

"Simply upgrading to the Supervisor2T will not increase the performance levels of existing modules at all, in fact, it will substantially decrease the overall performance of the chassis from Supervisor 720 levels, unless every existing module is retrofitted with a new daughter card. To retrofit a fully populated chassis, the daughter cards alone would cost between $50-$105k list price."

HP's competitive intelligence report also made the following statement:

"The new Supervisor 2T requires a 6500-E chassis. The 6513E has only been shipping since late 2010 and it represents just a small percentage of the overall 6500 installed base."

Well, Dual CCIE #18532 Security/R&S - George Morton has once again shown his keen eye for the facts:

"I noticed in the HP competitive report that the reference to the 6500E was the 6513E the last of the E models introduced. The interesting thing is the BradRees.Com web site references the entire 6500E family series in December of 2004 (page 2-21). The first mention of the 6500 product line is August 1999 (page 114).

"So let's do some math:"

Introduction	Years in service	Years	Percent of History
6500 series:	1999 to 2004	5 years	40%
6500E series:	2004 to 2011	7 years	60%
Source: George Morton

Morton continued, "Want to bet the bulk of 6500's are 'E', HP is a bit off with its math. That does not change the fact that the 6500 series might not be the best future for core or distribution switching in the future. Smaller closet requirements have led to a real explosion in 3750 sales over the years. Stacking with Fabric Extensions like in the Nexus is a more logical design solution than the 6500 series."

View the HP competitive intelligence report

Hey HP...Really? Time for a reality check!

What's your take?