And in the ultimate backhanded compliment, Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) now appears to have shifted its strategy to attack, first and foremost, McData not Brocade.
"It is no secret that Cisco/Andiamo tailored its business model to go after Brocade, with almost all major aspects of its strategy mirroring the best parts of Brocade's business model," writes Goldman Sachs & Co. analyst Laura Conigliaro in a research note issued this week. "But over the course of 2002, the market reality began to shift, with McData recovering on its own and then at least partially taking advantage of the damage Cisco's marketing had done to Brocade (and the damage Brocade had done to itself) starting in the fall of 2002."
Continues Conigliaro: "In 2003, McData has clearly surged ahead with its new products in both the high-end and midrange, and thus it is only natural that Cisco would now be shifting its strategy to go after the strongest player."
However, a Cisco insider says this is a misreading of the company's strategy. "The target was always McData Brocade just got in the way," he says.
In any case, the nitty-gritty financial details of the McData/Brocade saga are included in Byte and Switch Insider's inaugural report The Top 10 Public Storage Networking Companies which ranks the industry's biggest players based on quantitative financial data.
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