Cisco, by many accounts, has not sold a significant number of the NuSpeed-based SN 5400 routers. (According to one industry source, Cisco has sold between 300 and 400 units each month; Cisco does not disclose sales figures for individual product lines.) What's especially hurt its prospects is that iSCSI, the IP protocol used to send block-level storage over Ethernet, has taken much longer to mature than was expected. Cisco has been one of the leaders of iSCSI's development since its inception (see Cisco Stalls on iSCSI).
Industry observers speculate that Cree and Jurgens are leaving now because the terms that required them to stay at Cisco for a certain period of time after the NuSpeed acquisition (a.k.a. "golden handcuffs") are expiring. Cisco completed its acquisition of NuSpeed in September 2000.
More to the point, the NuSpeed crew may have felt abandoned by Cisco to some extent. Around the same time Cisco bought NuSpeed, it was initiating a new project: Andiamo Systems Inc., whose charter was to develop a killer Fibre Channel switch (see Ciscos Secret SAN Strategies Revealed, Cisco Owns Up to Andiamo, Cisco Buys Andiamo, Cisco's Creative Andiamo Options, and IBM Tells Cisco: 'Let's Go!').
"They sort of got orphaned, especially after Luca [Cafiero] took over the storage group," says an industry insider, who did not want to be named.
Another wrinkle in this saga -- although it is most likely unrelated to the NuSpeed founders' departure from Cisco -- is that last year, stakeholders of defunct networking startup NeoNetworks Inc. filed a lawsuit against Cisco, Cree, Jurgens, and others alleging that they stole technology and business relationships developed by NeoNetworks. Prior to starting NuSpeed, Cree was NeoNetworks' VP of marketing and Jurgens was its VP of business development. Rich Ostlund, a partner at Minneapolis law firm Anthony Ostlund & Baer, which is representing the plaintiffs, says the matter is pending and is in the discovery phase (see Cisco Sued Over NuSpeed).
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