Brocade cashing in on new technology gamble

Vendor claims the risk in transitioning its business towards virtual switches and Ethernet fabric is paying off

Brocade has insisted that its move towards virtualisation and new technology will not only pay off in the long run, but is raking in cash for it already.

At its Partner Summit event in Prague, the firm's chief executive Lloyd Carney (pictured) opened up to CRN on how its product development poses an "innovator's dilemma" for the firm, but how the risky decision is working out.

Carney claimed that the firm is keen to encourage sales of its new virtual routers and Ethernet fabric despite it eating into its core physical router business as it will best prepare Brocade and its partners for the future - something he claims rivals are not doing.

He said: "We have the classic innovator's dilemma: if you're innovating your own existing product, you're replacing that existing product with someone else and a lot of people are reluctant to do that.

"We have a virtual router and when compared to our competitors' virtual router, we are ten-times faster than theirs and faster than our own physical router. [Rivals] disable their virtual router so it wouldn't be as fast as their physical router because they don't want they people to not buy their physical router.

"We know the future lies in virtual routing and networking- it is going to happen. If you know it is going to happen, you may as well prepare for the fact you're going to sell less physical switches and more virtual switches.

"We embrace that. We know that it means potentially less top-line revenue but we hope that we grow our fabric business fast enough to offset the loss of revenue on existing business and we think we can do that. Life isn't absolute - people won't switch completely to Ethernet fabrics. They will still use traditional switches so we will do both for a while.

"We made a conscious decision and took a risk that we would impede our top-line revenue by selling a product that is more efficient than the one we already have. We're selling the future, and we're seeing the growth and revenue."