In my opinion, Juniper Networks is striking at the heart of Cisco's competitive edge, its one million certified engineers!

How you may ask?

Free Juniper JUNOS training for Cisco certified engineers until December 2009!

Obviously, Juniper J-Partner Resellers benefit from the program as it reduces the time and expense of getting SEs certified.

For this story, a well-known Cisco CCIE gave "kudos" to Juniper on its FREE, but cutting edge Juniper Fast Track Certification Program:

"Its design for training is based on the move by Juniper to enter the Enterprise channel. From its inception Juniper had been an ISP provider first. Companies like WorldCom were early investors in Juniper. With its current Enterprise market strategy, Juniper training is key for VAR’s and Enterprise customers to expand sales in this space. The key element to get the IT department to accept Juniper is to follow the Cisco model of developing their VAR relationship with a strong Training Program. The Cisco training program has been the industry leader for many years.

"But without competition Cisco has driven the cost of training up without benefiting the VAR with higher margins.

"Now Juniper, a well respected brand in the VAR community is helping to ramp VAR’s up faster with inexpensive, extensive training.

"I say, good for Juniper. The market needs to see successful competitors like HP and Juniper in the SMB and Enterprise channels. I am tired of asking, and asking, and asking Cisco to support industry protocols, (IPv6 at Ironport), become more reasonable with pricing per switch port, develop NX-OS features faster, expand the OS functionality of the ASA product line, (limited VPN, limited OSPF, no BGP, etc.) I could go on. With Juniper’s training program Cisco will adapt to the new market conditions or manage its way to..."

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