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.

The Boston Globe is reporting that new HP Networking boss David Donatelli (executive vice president of HP's Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking) is suing his former employer EMC in California state court seeking to void his non-compete agreement.

After paying Donatelli more than $17.2 million over the last 3 years, it should be no surprise that EMC has sued in Massachusetts state court to have Donatelli's non-compete agreement enforced.

Unfortunately, EMC's Key Employee Agreements (KEA) are not on file with the SEC or in any EMC filing, however, according to EMC's most recent Proxy Statement Schedule 14A, filed (Mar. 26, 2009) with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission:

In January 2009, the Compensation Committee approved, at Mr. Tucci's recommendation, a discretionary bonus of $70,000 for Mr. Donatelli in recognition of his role in driving the rapid implementation of flash technology in our storage products and the strong performance of our Information Storage business in 2008.

Donatelli's EMC responsibility (the storage unit) declined by $348.5 million (13%) in revenue for 1Q09 vs. 1Q08.

Donatelli is the beneficial owner of 1,968,366 EMC common stock shares (1,737,400 of those shares are by virtue of options to purchase those shares).

Additionally, Donatelli holds 301,955 restricted EMC stock units.

Networking solutions vendor Enterasys is making a global offer to Nortel customers worldwide:

100% Trade-In Credit For Nortel Products

To participate globally, all a Nortel customer has to do is provide an invoice showing the purchase price of a qualifying Nortel product, and Enterasys will credit 100% of that amount toward the list price of a qualifying Enterasys product.

Note: For Nortel customers who cannot provide invoices, Enterasys will still offer a 40% discount off its qualifying product list prices.

This Enterasys offer is good to Nortel customers through the end of 2009, terms and conditions apply. For further Nortel customer 100% trade-in credit program details contact your global Enterasys sales office.

Qualifying Nortel Products:

Nortel Ethernet Routing Switches 2500, 4500, 5500, 5600, 8006, 8010, 8100, 8300, and 8600.

Nortel Business Access Point 120.

Nortel WLAN Access Points 2220, 2221, 2231, 2330, and 2332.

Nortel WLAN Security Switches 2250, 2270, 2350, 2360, 2361, 2370, 2380, and 2382.

Enterasys Products by Topology:

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It was just a mere 8 months ago that former Cisco star Mike Volpi blogged:

"In my last role at Cisco, I managed an organization with 7,000 employees and $11B in revenues. From that rather high perch, I stepped into the leadership of Joost - a much smaller organization with great ambitions. Others have done this transition before, but I’ve found it fascinating as it has required a good degree of rewiring for me."

Fastforward to Michelangelo Volpi's most recent blog last week:

How Are We Doing?

"Nothing, not brain-eating aliens, not cats on skateboards, and not rumors and speculation, will keep us from continuing on our mission to bring video to you over the internet. In the afterglow of the hype of our early days, we’ve had our fair share of critics, but we’re encouraged every day by the amount of feedback emails, tweets, Facebook comments and more that we receive from our fans. The team here continues to work hard, every day, to make Joost a success, and we thank you for your continued support."

Amazingly, on the very same day as Volpi's blog above, Joost investor CBS reported on its CNET News Service:

Yours truly makes a living selling secondary Cisco gear, so I'm very biased, but nonetheless ecstatic to present the results of a survey, that in my opinion, suggests the secondary Cisco market is finally overcoming the fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) that has been created by Cisco in order to try and dissuade companies from considering used or refurbished Cisco hardware sourced from suppliers (such as myself) who have chosen not to become Cisco registered partners.

In his research note today, RBC Capital Markets Managing Director - Mark Sue offers this refreshing respite, "Cisco's sales pipeline is thawing and we've noticed healthy services revenues offsetting the product softness. The April quarter aside, improving seasonality and a resumption in network switch upgrades may point to better relative trends in the July quarter. Our recent Changewave survey indicates 27% of respondents reporting network utilization of 51-75% up from 23% in the prior quarter. Additionally, 8% of survey respondents indicated they are likely to spend more money in 2Q09 up from 4% in the prior quarter. At its current run rate, we expect Cisco to close the quarter with a book to bill greater than 1.0.

"Gross margins may decline sequentially from 64% but may be modestly higher than the guidance of 63% as Cisco leverages its scale and works to tighten its supply chain as purchase commitments come up for renewal. Cisco's earnings visibility is improving, in our view, driven by stringent cost containment. And while revenues are still decreasing YoY, the rate of decline seems to be moderating. Several quarters of limited visibility may persist since networking equipment may be a mid stage recovery segment, yet we're of the opinion that Cisco may hit its earnings estimate for this year as it aggressively cuts expenses."

Sue concluded, "Cisco may aggressively decrease operating expenses by over $200M sequentially or +7% by leveraging its own telepresence, curtailing travel, and deferring capex. It's a rolling recovering when it comes to the top line and we're estimating April revenues of $8.1B (-17% YoY) and a decrease of -11% QoQ."

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Although I have not been posting Cisco resumes on BradReese.Com for a while now, I was quite surprised to view Cisco's partnertalentportal.com unique visitor website traffic statistics that were compiled by web analytics company Compete.com Why? Because it appears the new Cisco Partner Talent Portal will need our help in order to avoid failure.

Cisco Partner Talent Portal Website Traffic:

Trying to understand the Cisco Partner Talent Portal's difficulty, I asked a well-known CCIE for his perspective:

"With Cisco's focus on the VAR channel they have lost site of their true wealth, those individuals whom have achieved Cisco certifications. The contact and value reflect the lack of interest. I have never seen Cisco do anything for the CCIE resources that they have. When you consider what a CCIE knows and can do for Cisco or against Cisco I am very suprised that Cisco does not market directly to the CCIE channel to help with the deployment of new products. The new site just shows a lack of understanding of their support group of users.

"As a CCIE I wonder if Cisco understands what we need to do the job? I do know they never ask. My local dry cleaner is more interested in my business than Cisco, and I am a CCIE to boot. The issue is simple, Cisco has just thrown more on the Internet Wall. The problem is that Cisco does not know how to measure the effectiviness of the site.

According to the below email, sent only hours ago by Cisco Systems Senior Director - Jeff Campbell to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, Cisco is against the "Buy America" provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program.

Please keep in mind that the only reason we have been allowed to read Cisco's email is because President Obama has wisely and prudently required it according to his memorandum:

Sec. 3. Ensuring Transparency of Registered Lobbyist Communications

Thank you President Obama!

The Buy American Provisions that Cisco is Against:

Page 189

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In his research note this week, RBC Capital Markets Managing Director - Mark Sue is concerned that Cisco may be experiencing some near-term delays with its MDS storage switch refresh, providing Brocade with an incremental share gain window of opportunity.

Sue was more upbeat about Brocade's prospects, "Near-term demand remains solid for Brocade with positive trends with key OEM partners despite the uncertain macro as storage continues to rank high in terms of IT spend. Our recent dialogue with storage vendors indicates Brocade's strong fibre channel OEM ties and, if anything, Cisco's aggressive push into the data center may be the catalyst for IBM and HPQ to strengthen their respective Ethernet connections with Brocade as well. So while Brocade may lose some share with EMC much longer term as Cisco gains traction with its Unified Computing Platform, we think the company may more than make it up on the Ethernet switch side."

Cisco has never been shy about promoting its highly polished image, so it was quite refreshing to see The New York Times inadvertently promote Cisco's image by publishing two photos of a Cisco phone onboard Air Force One, according to the Times:

"The White House always travels with the president. When President Obama flew to Columbus, Ohio, on Friday morning -- a visit typical of the trips he has taken during the opening weeks of his administration -- the essential pieces of the West Wing follow."

The Times caption on the photo above:

"White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and Mr. Axelrod in the conference room on Air Force One. Mr. Gibbs scanned the morning papers and later met with the traveling press corps."

Times caption on the photo below:

"Connecting with the rest of the administration. Editors' note: The numbers on the telephone were obscured to conform with White House security regulations."

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