

Cisco acquires Meraki: how 3 guys from MIT transformed the networking industry - hornbaker
http://sequoiacapital.tumblr.com/post/36033519237/cisco-acquires-meraki-how-3-guys-from-mit-transformed

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madsushi
Great news for the Meraki team, who have made a wonderful product.
Unfortunately it means I need to find another wifi vendor, as my company chose
to resell Meraki specifically to counter Cisco's portfolio.

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Nate75Sanders
Do you mind explaining that last part?

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madsushi
We're not a Cisco partner, so we became a Meraki reseller in order to be able
to provide wireless gear. Now that Cisco has bought them, we'll have to look
for another vendor as we're still not going to be a Cisco partner. We're the
"not Cisco" guys, Juniper for switching, HP for servers, etc.

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jacquesm
That's exactly why Cisco had to buy them. They don't want to lose partner
channel sales to companies that won't push Cisco. I expect there are a lot of
parties in that boat or at least a very similar one.

Once you've made the step to not buy Cisco for one product the dam is breached
and all your purchasing decisions that would otherwise default to Cisco are up
for negotiations and alternatives.

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hkmurakami
This is a strategy that I've been told is effective in getting acquired. If
your business is a _huge_ pain in the ass to the incumbent's status quo, then
said incumbent will acquire you; they won't shut the product down explicitly,
but it'll lead a marginalized existence thereafter.

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hkmurakami
_> Quick: when was the last time you plugged in an Ethernet cable?_

If I haven't plugged in my ethernet cable in a while, can't it just mean that
my wired network is running smoothly?

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lazydon
discussion is here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4802147>

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nnnnni
So what exactly does this mean for Meraki and its customers?

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sdfjkl
See: <http://www.meraki.com/company/cisco-acquisition-faq>

In essence, everything is supposed to go on as before. What is really going to
happen remains to be seen. Money changes everything, and there's a huge
difference in company cultures between Cisco and Meraki.

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mwerty
What do they mean by multitenancy? <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multitenancy>
\- this?

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sdfjkl
Yes. This refers to the cloud controller, which all Meraki devices connect to,
as opposed to the traditional appliance/software that you install and host
yourself for your own devices only.

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Foreshadow
Now those vulnerabilities placed by design will NEVER be fixed...

So much for those late night chats with the engineers.

Those management packets will forever remain unencrypted... ;-)

