Cisco, F5 and F10

This is the first technology blog that I'm writing. IT folks should be very familiar with the brand Cisco, F5 Networks, and probably Force10.

Cisco is the worldwide leader in networking; F5 is the leader in Application Delivery Networking (ADN) whereas Force10 is the new comer in networking. Application Delivery Networking is an area that Cisco always wanted to penetrate, but ironically, all F5 Malaysia Tier 1 partners are Cisco gold partners and most of them prefer F5 rather than Cisco for ADN solution.

We always grumbled, why Cisco wanted this 100K pie, and keep pushing their gold partners (who are also F5 partners) to replace F5 ADN solution with Cisco ANS solution, they should just focus on their multi millions routing and switching portion and leave F5 alone.

Somehow our grumbles are answered recently, F5 has a new "alliance" in F10 (Force10). F10 had won some significant deals over Cisco in the networking space.

The morale of what had happened, focus on your core strength, and build on it till no one can get near. Don't dillute your focus on area that you are not even number 2.