| >>Just when you thought the battle of proprietary vs standards was
>>all but over, this happens.
The battle's over. No one won...well, Cisco won a little bit.
>>A customer of mine is looking at putting some FDDI in. They have
>>been talking to Cisco and since they own Crescendo guess what they
>>are pushing? CDDI.
Since "CDDI" came out as a term for Crescendo's NRZ-encoded standard
for running FDDI over UTP, we've been pushing the issue with customers
by asking whether they mean the ANSI standard or the proprietary
Crescendo standard.
Basically, here's how I see it:
- "TP-PMD" is the proper short name for the ANSI standard, but it
doesn't roll off the tongue as well as "CDDI". Most lay people
don't know the difference and for all intents and purposes,
"CDDI" has now become the defacto name for the "ANSI TP-PMD"
standard. Reading any trade rag on the subject will convince
you of this. Customers interchange "CDDI" with "TP-PMD" all
the time.
- Since "CDDI" was tied to Crescendo for so long and NONE of the
competing companies want them to have a leg up, most competing
companies (like Digital) raise the question on which standard
the customer wants. As soon as we suggest that "CDDI" is
proprietary, their immediate reaction is "Oh no, we want the
standard stuff".
- Crescendo has updated most if not all of their "CDDI" gear
to the ANSI standard. So even though there is older
CDDI-standard gear out there, their new stuff should be
compliant.
- Since we're not going to convince customers to start saying
"TP-PMD" instead of "CDDI", let's be slimey and raise the
concern that the gear that they buy from Cisco/Crescendo may
or may not be standard compliant. OK, so it's slimey...but
Cisco already has an advertising budget that kills, so let's
at least try to take advantage of this weakness and get
customers to buy our standards-compliant gear.
>>I have told the customer about proprietary vs standard TPDDI and
>>is more or less convinced. He is asking though what vendors support
>>the CDDI vs what vendors support the Green Book.
Forget the Green Book, SDDI, or the proprietary CDDI standard. Almost
two dozen interoperating TP-PMD products were demoed last year at
Interop from companies like Digital, IBM, Crescendo, SGI, 3Com, NPI,
UB, SysKonnect, etc. Anyone who's anyone today that builds FDDI over
copper products adheres to the ANSI TP-PMD standard.
- Larry
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I agree with everything Larry said with one exception - questioning
cisco's current product set.
I don't think that we have any reason to trash them - they were part
of the interoperability tests, and we all worked well together. We
will look ill informed to suggest othewise. If they attack us on
specifics, then I'll take off the gloves, but I'll do it point by
point,not as a blanket attack.
As I said, Larry is correct on his statements, and just to reinforce
them, here goes:
1) TP-PMD is the ANSI standard
2) CDDI is the well known name, for TP-PMD , and Crescendo's
current product set meets the standard to the best of our knowledge.
I would point out the distinction, and then call it wahtever
they like!
3) It is no longer correct to attack cisco/crescendo (crisco?)
about the proprietary nature of CDDI - I probably erred in not
updating people on that topic.
4) The Green book is dead.
5) SDDI probably will survive, but no one asks us for it.
6) TP-PMD also supports 150 ohm STP, so if asked about SDDI,
tell them that its not TP-PMD compliant. That is a true
statement. Whether we sell product for FDDI on 150 ohm
cable is a different question.
|
| >> 3) It is no longer correct to attack cisco/crescendo (crisco?)
>> about the proprietary nature of CDDI - I probably erred in not
>> updating people on that topic.
Of course you're right Bill, that's not a good way of doing business,
but I just hate seeing Cisco get a leg up. :-)
However, we should definitely make it clear to our customers that we
do support the ANSI standard with all of our new hub, switch, and
adapter products even though we still (?) have some Green Book standard
support in our older FDDI gear.
- Larry
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