Cisco Systems Inc. is working with selected webscale companies, large service providers -- and perhaps enterprises, soon -- on so-called co-development code drops. In some ways, the code-drops and joint work sound like Cisco's response to Facebook's Open Compute Project, in which communities of companies are collaborating on new networking hardware and software.
Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins clarified the situation for ChannelE2E during Cisco Partner Summit 2016 in San Diego. The code drops started with a webscale customer, he said. Th networking company would write some code, gather feedback from the webscale customer, then revise accordingly. The iterations allowed Cisco to ultimately deliver much-needed code for the webscale company.
More recently, the networking company has been having similar co-development code drop conversations with service providers, and is even starting related discussions with enterprises. When I first heard about the strategy, I assumed it was Robbins' response to Open Compute Project -- Facebook's effort to redefine the networking market around open hardware and software.
Although Cisco is an OCP member, I figured that was merely a Godfather strategy: "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer."
When I asked Robbins about the co-development code drops he offered some timely thoughts in this quick video. Take a look.
Here's more Cisco Partner Summit 2016 coverage.
