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01 Feb 2010
Comments:6
Cisco partners have complained that severe kit shortages have left them struggling to fulfil orders on time.
The vendor is battling to ramp up production fast enough to meet post-recession demand but is hamstrung by its recession-hit chipset supplier base. Lead times on deals – particularly those involving 10 Gbit Ethernet technology such as the new Nexus switches – now stand at as long as five months, partners report.
Gary Dobson, sales director at Cisco Premier partner Dynamic Technologies Europe (DTE), said he was quoted a lead time of 24 May on a pre-Christmas order for a government agency deal.
He said DTE could lose the contract if the equipment is not on site by 31
March.
“Cisco cannot make equipment fast enough to fulfil orders,” he said.
Tom Kelly, managing director of Cisco Gold partner Logicalis, admitted the supply drought is “a problem” but said he is satisfied that Cisco is doing all it can to resolve the situation.
“Things began to improve from the beginning of the calendar year and I would say that by the end of February lead times will become more reasonable – eight weeks as opposed to four months,” said Kelly.
Kelly also argued that Cisco had been “a victim of its own success”, adding it was a case of ensuring sales staff know there is an issue and getting them to “sell at the right level”.
Gary Middleton, business development manager at Cisco Gold partner Dimension Data, said: “This is of concern to us and we are working with Cisco to see how we can improve lead times on certain technology sets. So far it hasn’t affected business too much.”
Middleton added that Cisco had informed him that it had brought on additional silicon manufacturers to improve lead times. Kelly said Cisco has named a senior person partners can work with to resolve any specific issues they are having.
In a statement, a Cisco representative confirmed it was “seeing some product lead time extensions stemming from supplier constraints”. But the vendor maintained it was an industry-wide problem.
Dobson, however, suspected otherwise.
“Cisco has told us it cannot get enough chipsets because of the recession as one of its suppliers went out of business,” he said.
“But Juniper lead times for 10 Gbit products are two or three weeks. We are also having issues with the ASA firewall 5550 and there is no 10 Gbit in that.”
The Cisco representative added: "We continue to build upon our strong relationships with our suppliers to proactively manage our supply chain and minimise any potential impact to our customers and partners.”
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Do you agree?
Supply shortages hit Cisco lead times
Don't listen to the fear and loathing Cisco propagates about used equipment. We found the secondary market provider that Verizon and AT&T uses to help us save a contract: www.recoverydistribution.net. They even have a search engine on their web site that we used to determine what we needed was available in stock. Julie over there was really knowledgeable about the products and even helped suggest some substitutions that saved us money and saved our contract.
Posted by James Fox | 19 Apr 2010
Look at other Channels
We found a supplier called Canvas Systems who also had equipment sitting in stock in the UK and shipped next day pre-noon. Non channel can meet your deadlines it seems. www.canvasssystems.co.uk
Posted by Jim Smith | 11 Feb 2010
Refurbished resellers are the way forward!
Found these guys:
www.canvassystems.com
The buy/sell/lease/rent from ALL major OEM brands like Cisco, Juniper, HP, IBM, Dell.
They delivered on time and everything was tested and equipment covered with a 90-day advance replacement warranty!
I threw away my Disty contacts business card and buy my kit from the "Grey Market" now as it is much cheaper and rarely any delivery delays.
I use a their 3rd Party services & support division for maintenance too.
Awesome!
Posted by The Tech Guy | 11 Feb 2010
Grey market looks bright
I'm in complete agreement with the previous posts. The "grey market" as Cisco likes to label it is not so dark... We needed a couple of loaded 6509s for a new distro-edge project and we were quoted 100 day lead time from our Cisco rep. We couldn't wait that long so called on a company called Network Hardware Resale that we had been doing our due diligence on. They not only delivered our kit in less than a week but it came fully loaded and configured, with a 1-yr warranty and SMARTnet. Apparently the "recertification" issue is just a ploy from my former Cisco rep as these guys had no issue lining it up through another Cisco partner. Not only did they cut the delivery down from 100 days to 4 days but they saved us 20 per cent off our standard discount. I highly recommend these guys if any of you are in a similar bind. I worked with a guy by the name of Patrick McDermott. Worth a check if you are in a similar bind or just as a smart sourcing strategy.
Posted by James | 11 Feb 2010
we ended up buying used hardware and saved a ton
we just googled and found an outfit out of California called OSI Hardware and had the kit the following day. Speedy service and we saved money... quite nice really
Posted by Jim Darmen | 08 Feb 2010
Independent Channel
I found a news story on this a while ago, although constraints on run-rate items are getting worse.
Try the independent channel for Cisco hardware.
http://www.hardware.com/news/refurbished/cisco-distribution-warns-of-four-month-plus-lead-times/
Posted by Mark Cadbury | 03 Feb 2010
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