The Fall of Fibre Channel: Page 15 of 16

To begin with, it told us that it couldn’t spare any of its new products
because they were all being shipped to customers. In the six year’s that I
have been running test programs, I’ve found one thing to be absolutely
certain. When a vendor says, “Our entire inventory has been shipped to
customers,” this may be translated in either of two ways: “We don’t have
a product,” or “We don’t think our product has a chance in Hell to win your test.”

(This is one
of the three “big rules” in life, the others being: “Never start a land war in
Asia” and “Never buy a used Japanese car from a friend.”)

Things got even better last month when Greg Reyes, Brocade’s ebullient CEO,
told us Brocade was too busy to participate (see Greg Reyes, Chairman and CEO, Brocade). Oh, right,
that’s OK then.

(One wonders which of the great networking breakthroughs
might never happened had their inventors decided they were too busy. When Alexander Graham Bell called, “Watson, I need you!” suppose for a moment that Watson had been too busy... filing his nails, perhaps, or – who knows? – having it off with the chambermaid. Why, we’d all be talking into soup cans today!)

Now, it’s fine to turn down an invitation if you’re the small, shy, shrinking violet
type of vendor, one that doesn’t go around climbing on every available soapbox
telling the world that you are the Greatest, the Best, the Number One, the
Champ. But Brocade, and more specifically, Reyes, does just this (see Brocade CEO in Tick-Top Form).