Cisco becomes a major Linux server vendor overnight
In the battle for supremacy among the software industry's Big Four, Cisco may be placing the biggest bets and angling for the biggest returns. Some still think of Cisco as a networking hardware vendor, but hardware is simply Cisco's beachhead into others' turf, similar to how Microsoft (desktop), Oracle (database), and IBM (everything) are using core strengths to move into adjacent markets.
If anyone needed further confirmation of Cisco's software aspirations, its forays into Linux offer a strong hint.
In what might have looked like a publicity stunt around a $100,000 prize for Linux developers, Cisco's Linux development contest was actually a major clue as to just how serious it is about becoming a leading server vendor with a global development community--and soon.
Today, Cisco announced the winners of its "Think Inside the Box" contest. The three winning applications are very interesting, but the bigger story here is what Cisco's contest just demonstrated:
Most of Cisco's 7 million installed Integrated Services Routers (ISRs) are now servers, for all intents and purposes.
The contest proved that server-side Linux developers who know C/C++, Java, or Python can now write applications to Cisco routers with little or no knowledge of routers. (Remember: the finalists only had 90 days to write their applications).
That's a development community of millions, folks. Overnight.
Still think Cisco is a hardware company? By fostering a developer ecosystem around its core router family of products, Cisco just made its hardware solutions much more valuable to its customers (and increased the stickiness of its customer relationships), and turned its routers into a big target development platform for developers.
I wrote about Cisco's contest last June as Cisco's way of paying developers to stick a finger in the Microsoft eye with a $100,000 bounty for writing Linux-based applications for its AXP (Application Extension Platform).
I clearly underestimated Cisco's ambitions.
This is doubly clear when correlated with another Cisco announcement this week about its new and expanded Cisco Developer Network, which SearchNetworking covered.
Cisco is serious about software and fostering a global developer community. As I argued in my "Software's Big Four" blog, each of these companies is entering new markets from incumbent positions of strength, unlike HP and SAP (which both have big software businesses), which are largely sticking to existing businesses.
Millions of Cisco routers already sit in data centers and branch offices around the world. They consume less power than servers. They have a smaller footprint. They're more secure. And they enable a class of applications that Cisco calls "network-aware." Just slot in an AXP blade hosting an application.
Basically routers are much smarter now, and with the right applications can be used to take control of your phones at night to monitor for burglars; manage HVAC, water, and power in your office; deliver advertising in your retail store; and much, much more.
There are two things Cisco still lacks, however, in order to make an unimpeachable bid for developers. First, it needs to move off Broadcom chips for its ISRs and add x86 chips to the mix, something that I'm hearing rumblings may well be on the way.
Second, as impressive as Cisco's outreach to Linux developers has been, the company also needs to support Microsoft's .Net/Windows developers. It's too big a market to ignore.
If Cisco can deliver on x86 and to Microsoft developers--and I think it just might--Cisco will have opened its router (server) family to an even larger development community than the already large Linux market, further blurring the distinction between routers and general-purpose servers.
The result? A formidable software company that sprouted out of a dominant hardware company. How would Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM react?
Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
First you say:
"Millions of Cisco routers already sit in data centers and branch offices around the world. They consume less power than servers. They have a smaller footprint. They're more secure."
Then you say:
"First, it needs to move off Broadcom chips for its ISRs and add x86 chips to the mix, something that I'm hearing rumblings may well be on the way. Second, as impressive as Cisco's outreach to Linux developers has been, the company also needs to support Microsoft's .Net/Windows developers."
Moving to .Net/Windows on x86 would seem to negate the "less power, smaller footprint, more secure". And the assertion that there is a development community of "millions" would seem to contradict the assertion that Windows/.Net developers are "too big" as a group too ignore-- unless you're taking the strict view that more developers are always better (regardless of the relative merits of the platform).
Go ahead and put x86 in my Cisco routers if they don't consume that much more power.
.Net on my routers? Sorry, I'd be looking for another vendor.
I think what he meant was that maybe they should stick Mono on the things (which is still a bad idea IMPO).
As for their overall move? It would be cool if Cisco actually could stick some small but fast services on the things that normally waste server space/hardware/etc: maybe a djdns-based DNS service, ntpd, and stuff like that.
My wimpy little Buffalo WiFi router (modified with the Tomato firmware) runs ntpd and I use an automated DNS cache-poisoning script for adblocking/malware protection for my entire home network. Big mighty Cisco iron can't do this?
If they r really serious about hacking the server market they should start shipping Appliances based on Linux, lightweight and provide JVM support so that Java/J2EE applications can run securely on top of the Linux layer. This itself will make thousands of existing Java/J2EE enterprise applications readily workable and deployable on the platform.
ISRs can't host Linux apps. In order to host Linux, you need to buy an AXP module, which in can be more expensive than the ISR (or a rack server, for that matter).
So how many AXP modules are installed? If the total number of ISRs is 7 million, and only a small fraction of them will have an AXP, then this isn't very interesting.
Another problem with the analysis is Cisco's high-end virtualization appliances (WAVE) are already hosting certified Windows 2008 instances, after Cisco joined Microsoft's SVVP program last year.
That's a funny way for Cisco to be "sticking it" to Microsoft, eh, Matt, by running their servers and applications?
OTOH, Cisco is making a strong Linux play, which Matt seems to exaggerate a bit. The Nexus series (okay, a bit big, but) use a modified Linux instead of IOS (I have a pair of 5000's running 10gE). Not sure how many apps I could host on 'em, though I could see it someday running small/fast/light stuff (see above in another comment for examples).
Stop all the clocks,
Cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dogs from barking with a juicy bone,
Cilence the piano and with mufflde drum bring out the coffin,
Let the mourners come,
Let airplane circle mouning over head,
Scribling on the sky the message,
He is dead,
Put crape bouz round
- by thenetworker October 8, 2009 9:58 PM PDT
- The German guy with surveillance was pretty good too. I could not figure what he was doing at the end. Was it a touch sensitive screen? He was tops too.
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