RE: Nothing new....

When we used to borg another comapny's network into ours, guaranteed if there was any pr0n to be found it was usually a hidden stash on some kit only their network/firewall admins had access to.....

RE: Could have been worse...

... or German cucumbers!

RE: Oracle...

"....a 6-8 week lead time....." What, they making the things from raw materials!?!?! That would imply they're not even holding a stock of components at the factory but ordering them from the manufacturers as required. Cheaper for Oracle, not so good for the customers. With them not seeming to hold a stock of components, I wonder if any of their suppliers has been hit by events in Japan?

Please stop...

"....An RPG-29 penetrated the frontal armour of a British Challenger 2 in Iraq...." Not quite. The round ricocheted off the road in front of the tank and hit the thinner armour under the nose. Even then, the armour was thick enough to soak up so much of the round's power that the damage to the tank was a coin-size hole and the driver lost three toes. The tank was not "destroyed" or "disabled". After an investigation, all Challengers in the theatre were fitted with additonal counter-measures under the nose which ensured the "success" could not happen a second time. Other attacks with RPG-29s and even the latest Iranian anti-tank weapons failed to penetrate the Challengers. In combat against Shia militia in Al-Amara, Iraq, one Challemger2 is reputed to have taken 27 hits from RPGs and missiles in one engagement without any impact on its fighting ability. The only weapon the crews really worried about was the larger IEDs being fired under the vehicle against the thinner floor armour.

The Abrams pictured looked to be the victim of an IED, not an RPG, and was probably destroyed by Allied air forces to stop the vehicle's systems falling into terrorist hands. AFAIK, the US claims the only Abrams ever lost to an AT weapon were a couple of "friendly-fire" victims hit by much bigger Hellfire missiles. So far, the upgraded Abrams does not seem to have a problem with RPG-29 hits.

Maybe that's because the tandem warhead on the RPG-29 "Vampir" is designed to defeat the external reactive armour added to many MBTs in the '80s, and is largely ineffective against more modern Chobham-type laminate armour. The RPG-29 got a lot of publicity after it was claimed that they had stopped many Israeli tanks in the Lebananon in 2006 (the Merkavas used reactive armour), but an Israelli investigation showed only five Merkavas had been total losses in the Lebanon. Four of those were due to large IEDs, the fifth (a Mk3 without the latest armour) had been stopped by a Kornet E anti-tank missile. All the other occaissions where Merkavas were penetrated by Hezbollah AT weapons were put down to the latest Russian-made Kornet and Metis AT missiles, and possibly the older AT-5. Since the Lebanon battles the Israellis revised tactics and upgraded just about all their Merkava units to the better Mk4, with the result that not one Merkava was lost in the Gaza operations in 2008, despite Hamas having plenty of RPG-29s. The Israelis have since added their Trophy missile defence system to the Merkava Mk4, which should stop even the Kornet getting a hit.

Maybe the MoD should take note that the Israellis have experimented with urban and disruptuve camo on armoured vehicels and decided it had little value, going back to standard olive-khaki schemes.

RE: @Jesper Frimann

OK, just so all us trolls can agree on something without upsetting the others, let's look for a neutral "victim" to beat up on.

So, notice how the Apple server figure is a big fat zero again?

/Shhh, fanbois don't count as real trolls 'cos real trolls don't wear turtlenecks!

RE: Hey Matt,

Surely not feeding the trolls amounts to neglect or animal cruelty?

RE: The wrong approach.

What, there's an "approach" in the hacking? Face it, you're never going to get Sony to put OtherOS back on a PS3, so what do you hope to gain? Childish kicks? You want to embarass Sony, but where is the benefit to the hackers? The reality is the hacking is itself nothing more than a nuisance exercise more likely to land some people with criminal records and bring more discredit to the Linux community. Sony will not die, the PSN will carry on. You don't want to buy another Sony device then that's fine, but for you to try and force others not to buy Sony products is just forcing your views on them. Most PS3 users couldn't give a stuff about OtherOS, they justy see a bunch of spoilt skiddies on a web-based vandalism spree. You talk about Sony's image, but the Joe Public perception of Anonymous and associated groups are that they all need to get out of their Moms' basements, get jobs and leave the PSN the fudge alone.

RE: "Brag on IRC, 4chan and wherever I can"

If I was into net crime, I wouldn't be as stupid as to advertise my "victories" on websites and channels known to be frequented by law enforcement agents.

Also, I never download pr0n. Never. <Cough, looks away>

RE: Blowing smoke @ Bryant

As I recall, the argument for the dust-blowers was that it could produce a continuous dustcloud without the need to first spot a threat, whereas smoke grenade launchers only work the once for a short time, and then only after the threat has been spotted and the launchers triggered. If a tank had already used its smoke it was unable to hide until the launchers (all external) had been reloaded - not likely in a firefight. I think you'll also find that the smoke grenades used to produce the "instant" smokescreen on modern armoured vehicles also include particles to generate IR "fog", so your own thermal and IR kit is also blinded by them. Whether the dustcloud experiment story is true or military urban folklore is debateable, but I've heard it several times from different sources so I suggest there must be an element of truth in it.

RE: @AC

Yes, but M$ still has the cash and lawyers to bury you so deep in lawsuits that even should you mount a defence, you will be broke long before you get the cases dismissed. And they can afford to send threatening legal letters to any hoster that would float your notSkype service, killing your network. And the PR machine to mount a campaign making out your notSkype is really a security risk, a way to introduce trojans and other nasties to regular Skype users, and only used by paedophiles/terrorists/<insert unwanted-types-of-the-week here>. Meanwhile, they have more than enough coders to add a small tweak to the Skype code which will leave your notSkype users unable to connect to proper Skype.

Never underestimate the ability of lots of cash.

RE: Happiness is a failing Sony

Please stop and think for a moment. You read about the hacks on tech webistes, maybe a brief article on the Beeb, and that's it. Most Sony customers won't even read about it because they don't go to tech webbies and go straight to the Sports section of the BBC website. Then, you have to place yourself in the boots of the average Sony customer, who probably thinks "So what, they got a few email addresses, can't you just get loads of those off Google?" At most, one or two may think twice of signing up for any Sony film promos. It will do SFA to dent sales of other Sony products such as TVs or laptops, and probably very little long-term damage to PlayStation sales either.

What it will do is harden Sony's attitude to Linux and any form of future collaboration, and mean even the most innocent of looks, either at Sony's websites or hardware, will mean a prompt visit by Sony lawyers and probably the local plod. The PS3 owners I know are annoyed with Sony over the loss of their online gaming service. But they're far angrier with the haxors who they see as a minority ruining everyone else's fun just because they can't play with their "hobby OS".

RE: Personal!! pain!! shocker!!

As I understand it, Sony did use advertising with the PS2 as Linux-ready and supplied additional bits (OtherOS, Ethernet adapter, harddrive) so you could use it as a "PC" but retain the ability to boot it up as an ordinary PS2 for gaming. They added a feature to the PS3 after launch to allow the same for the PS3, but then decided it introduced a "security risk" and dropped it from development for the PS3 Slim model. They then released a firmware update (3.21) that killed the dual-boot option and made the PS3s that could already dual-boot into game-only PS3s. Many users that want to keep the dual-boot capability simply didn't install the firmware update. Probably a bit simplified, but that's the sequence of events as I can find it. You could argue that Sony removed a paid-for feature from a product, but you could also argue that the security of the service they offered was paramount. Just imagine the screaming if someone had introduced a virus that attacked PS3s via the Sony network. I'm betting the vast majority of PS3 buyers had zero interest in using Linux on the PS3 and therefore the security of the service given to them outweighed the loss to a few hobbiests.

So, for all those pretending they have some moral right to go trashing Sony's websites, the answer would seem obvious - keep your PS3 at the old firmware prior to 3.21, or buy a PS2 (or just a cheap PC of eBay, it would probably be a better Linux PC than a PS3 anyway), and just STFU. It is ironic that the haxors are moaning about Sony's security when Sony removed the dual-boot because it introduced security issues!

RE: watch it here:

"......Why would PBS be high on anyone's target list?....." Well, that is the key to understanding the Anonyputzers. It's simply the mentality of the playground bully - pick on the weakest target. Everyone knows PBS is not going to have uber-security becuase PBS is hardly some major corporation rolling in dough. Why risk getting caught trying to hack a target with real defences and real worth when you can beat up on the easy target and then brag about how 1337 you are?

RE: let's just review...

I think you're giving the hackers waaaaaay too much credit. I think a more likely timeline for the typical hack would be as follows:

NOON: Wake up when Mom comes in and starts screaming about not having got job yet.

1PM: Surf pr0n.

2PM: Surf alt news channels and hacker forums.

3PM: Bored, look at jobsites to keep Mom quiet.

3:05PM: Chat with fellow losers on 4Chan, bitch about Sony even though don't even own a Sony product.

5PM: Hatch plan to use 1337 skillz to scan all Sony webistes with fellow losers, objective being to "show them".

5.05PM: Having exhausted very limited skillz, download hacking tool (and compromise own PC with buit-in and hidden rootkit), start automated scan of Sony websites.

5.10PM: Get a hit, follow online instructions from the hacking tool, get inside minor Sony website run by a third-party.

6:00PM: Having satisfied childish desire for vandalism, download some of the user database (can't downlaod all becuase harddrive is full of pr0n and also now full off scammer/spammer sh*t from the rootkit that came with the hacking tool).

6:05PM and for rest of the night: Brag on IRC, 4chan and wherever I can about how 1337 we are, pretend it was a major Sony site, but not mentioning the hacking tool, enjoy praise from fellow losers.

RE: B'WAHH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

I'm hoping that was humour, but I suspect otherwise given the poor grasp of reality shown by most Wikileaks supporters.

"....Bradley Manning have the cajones to do what's right....." Sorry, but with every new bit of info it looks more and more like Manning is just an attention seeking loser, upset that he couldn't fit in into the Army, that threw a whobbler after his boyfriend dumped him! So far, his motivations look far from noble and more like those of a child. I'm not surprised the Anonyputzers got upset by a PBS documentary that showed how shallow Manning's and Assnut's claims to the moral high ground really are.

RE: The British Army tried this in Berlin in the 80's

Thanks, I'd seen a similar pic but thought it was a one-off experiment, I didn't know it had been as widespread. Interesting theory on how to hide a Chieftain tank, I wonder if it worked from the air as a defence against Hinds?

RE: Take a Page From History...

The Taleban gunners are likley to be far too far away to be able to identify the pages as those from the Koran. A large slice of the Taleban are also illiterate, so they wouldn't be able to tell what the pages were even if they did get close enough. You could announce that you are pasting bits of the Koran all over your vehicles, but that would upset the locals, leading to less support from them and probably the usual Muslim riots Worldwide.

If we can fly Reaper drones over Afghanistan from the other side of the World, I don't see why we can't make drone APCs to scout out routes and act as sacrificial lambs to IEDs. RPGs I see as much less of a problem - spaced and reactive armour has been around for years and will stop most of the hollow-charge weapons the Taleban are likely to have, so why bother with silly paint schemes?

RE: Man, you know a lot about these ships

Sorry, I was spelling from memory.

RE: Now I'm curious

Not read it myself, but I'm told by staff in Riyadh that it was pretty openly available out there, often alongside such other "delightful" works as The Protocols of The Elders of Zion and Mein Kampf (the latter is widely read in the Mid East, even in "moderate" countries like Turkey).

It's highly likely that downloading Inspire in itself could be grounds for arrest in the UK under the Terrorism Act catch-all of having information of use to terrorists. A quick Yahoogle of Rizwaan Sabir might be wise.

Not just range and bearing.

The idea was also to alter the silhouette, making the ship itself harder to identify. Probably the most successful case of this was the Bismark, which had dark areas painted to her bow and stern as well as over her superstructure. This made her look shorter from a distance. When the Bismark was breaking out into the Atlantic, she was steaming with the smaller heavy-cruiser Prinz Eugen ahead of her, when the unfortunate HMS Hood chased her down. Hood's crew opened fire on the Prinz first, being tricked into thinking the Prinz was the Bismark, no doubt partly due to Bismark's camo.

I'm not sure there is much value to camo in the Afghan conflict - the vehicles are largely stuck on known tracks/roads, and will usually be accompanied by a large dust cloud when moving at any speed. Probably a far better idea to fit stronger spaced armour, or just use drone vehicles to head up a column and take the brunt of an ambush.

RE: @Matt

Big laugh - whatever defacement was achieved, into hasn't stopped PBS having the Frontline documentary on their pbs.org site. It's an interesting piece, complete with accusations that Manning admitted to Lamo that he was in contact with Assnut directly; that Assnut tried to get Lamo to "change the characterisation of his story" (i.e., lie); that Assnut did say he couldn't give a frig about any of the informers and had to be badgered into redacting their names; and that Assnut's first concern was how much money he could make out of Manning's leaks. Not surprised it upset the Anonyputzs!

RE: Mature way

"......If you know how please do enlighten us....." Well, I'd suggest something that doesn't draw attention to the cause of your upset! Few people outside of the US would even know what PBS is, let alone that there was a documentary that upset Anonyputzers being broadcast. From what I recall from trips to the States, PBS doesn't exactly have massive viewing figures. But I bet there are now many, many more people in the States who didn't see the original showing, plus many abroad, all looking for a copy so they can see what the Anonyputzs are getting in a lather about. Way to go, morons, you just made your own problems bigger! What a bunch of buffoons!

RE: "What ever happened to "innocent until proven guilty"?

"......you are not going to convince anyone that it is right...." Dear Intractable Pothead (sic), I would suggest that I have no interest in convincing you of anything, seeing as it is much more fun to laugh at the handwringing drivel you post. Why would I want you to actually consider your position and realise your stupidity? It would only reduce the changes us readers have to mock you.

".....Soldiers are people...." Really? Usually you handwringers are screaming about them being "baby-killers" or worse. But I think you need to go look at the relevant laws - Manning was a soldier, he CHOSE to sign up and he therefore CHOSE to abide by military law. He is charged with breaking military law and can be detained and kept under military guidelines. Yes, he has rights, but those are in balance with his being a member of the military. But, just to make sure others realise how silly you are being, suicide watches with almost identical conditions exist in civillian prisons, and are enforced to keep suicidal prisoners from self-harming. Now, I assume you're all for the right of Manning to be stopped from committing suicide, right?

".....Apologists for inhuman treatment treatment, such as you two, show the absolute moral poverty of the supporters of military action." Comments like yours show how blinded by your own paranoid and groundless fear of the military you are.

RE: Excellent news!

"....and able to set the prices..." The vendors only set the prices on brand new, cutting edge kit, and in the case of most people buying home desktops, laptops or home servers, they buy the latest and greatest and pay top whack out of ignorance. If you are willing to stay a step behind the bleeding edge then you can get your kit rediculously cheaply. I often advise friends buying PCs not to buy brand name desktops or laptops on current offers but to look for wholesalers shifting old stock (plenty on eBay), who will often sell you last year's latest and greatest (and often still with a manufacturer's warranty) for half the original list price. I even know some fanbois that manage to limit their spends buy buying older Apple gear. After all, apart from the really hardcore gamers, very few home users will ever use even half the power of their desktop or laptop. I even helped a friend set up a software business with half-price Xeon workstations, servers and storage, just by sifting through the wholesaler websites.

RE: re: Wouldn't that have known first?

"....many vendors will put a ton of boxes in a truck and call them sold this or that quarter....." Channel-stuffing is actually good news for us customers. The resellers are usually the ones left carrying the can after the vendor persuades/forces them to take a lot more stock than they can sell. The result is usually the reseller has to then sell on the kit at a discount to clear it, which means good deals for their customers if the kit is suitable. The problems begin when the kit is not suitable, or is badly out-performed by the competition, then the reseller gets stuck with a ton of kit they can't shift, even at a discount. But if the vendors screw the resellers over too often the resellers simply switch to another vendor. Most resellers we deal with have selling agreements with more than two vendors to safeguard them against vendor pressure.

RE: s Gaddafi hiding in there?

Gaddaffiduck is in Libya....

RE: There are more deatails about p8 than Kittson

"IBM has more information on its roadmap about Power8....." IBM's non-public roadmap just has a box marked "Power8" with no details and no date. Half the customers out there are getting that and nothing else, and a few of us enterprise customers, under NDA, are getting some airy-fairy waffle with "subject to changing market conditions" after each sentence. From here, it appears nothing is decided about Pee8, which casts a big shadow of doubt over whether Pee7/7+ to Pee8 will be the usual IBM forklift upgrade complete with a new revision of AIX. On the other hand, even Wikipedia tells you Kittson will be socket- and binary-compatible with the new Tukzilla blades, meaning current kit and apps will carry over nicely, and is due around 2014/15.

RE: Lamo by name.

In Lamo's defence, try looking at it from his viewpoint. He's probably living with the knowledge the FBI and other agencies are watching his every online move, and that some gubbermint types thought he got off too lightly for his hack of the New York Times. Then some guy contacts him, saying he's a military analyst and wants his advice on leaking secret documents? It would look like a sting to me, I'd be straight on the phone to the FBI!

It's also interesting that the same people now bashing Lamo make all kinds of excuses for hacker Gary McKinnon.

RE: I too would like popcorn.

Maybe I should ask Julian Assange how to set up a paywall, get it out on a subscription basis, and start making some money out of Manning's misery?

RE: The cnet reference is from 2003!

".....It just doesn't look like Linux has been 'catching up' much from 2003-2011...." Did the Linux revenue figure even register? Please go read the Gartner report article http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/26/gartner_q1_2011_server_numbers/ that Bill refers to, it shows the total UNIX server revenue as $2.6bn for the quarter, with IBM UNIX server revenue as $1.19bn, whereas the IDC report shows that Linux capped $2bn in the same quarter. Linux hasn't just overtaken AIX in terms of revenue, it has almost overtaken UNIX as a whole!

RE: Numbers don't lie

Well, it would be nice if your post had some numbers of interest rather then. Let's try some simple maths:

Average unit price for one of IBM's UNIX sales = $64k

Avergae unit price for one of Snoreacle's UNIX sales = $32k

Average unit price for one of hp's UNIX sales = $75k

Considering you're always yammering on about how hp's Tukzilla kit "doesn't scale" (yawn), it seems that hp are still selling more of the top-end boxes than IBM, which means hp must be still leading in the more lucrative enterprise end of the market. The high-end sales would probably also drag through more services and associated sales such as high-end storage, etc, so the high-end sales are where you want to be. The Snoreacle figure doesn't lie - half the average unit value of even IBM? - but speaks volumes. Either Larry is selling his kit out at a loss (a tactic which killed Sun) or he's just churning the Slowaris webserving base with smaller Slowaris servers, which will mean very little associated sales added in, low margins, and very little cash to re-invest in further development. How long will Larry let the Slowaris and SPARC development jaunt leach money from more profitable Snoreacle products is anyone's guess, but probably a bit longer than sensible due to his ego? But he doesn't need either for Exadata, and even Exalogic runs on x64.

"....What I find interesting is Oracle is dropping Itanium support because it is being phased out by Intel after Kittson, but won't admit that there is no 45nm, 32nm or 22nm SPARC64 chip..." So where's the IBM public roadmap with any detail about what comes after Pee8? Or any public roadmap with real and concrete details on Pee8 itself? By the (low) standard you set, that must mean AIX is dead in a few years. Allipoos, can I suggest people in glass houses....

RE: Yet more Fanboism...

"....some kit is better at some stuff than other kit..... You are no different to Matt B...." Strange, because I've been known to say exactly that, so are you disagreeing with yourself or just admitting you don't actually read my posts before frothing up?

"....How on earth can they get accurate linux figures?...." These are from IDC's vendor figures, as in servers shipped from the vendors with Linux licences as part of the deal. The reality is a lot more get Linux installed seperately, but how many of those also go onto support agreements and generate revenue for either the server vendors or the Linux disties is hard to gauge, so the real Linux picture is probably even sweeter than the tasty $2bn reported. The interesting bit is the UNIX and mainframe sector did $4bn, which means it is likely Linux as a whole generated more than any individual flavour of UNIX (Slowaris, AIX or hp-ux).

RE: Lamo - a publicity seeking piece of scum out of the ...

Ah, so funny! Look how quick you can go from hero to zero in the eyes of the nutters. Old Lamo used to be the toast of the "revolutionaries", when he was "sticking it to the Man", but now he's presenting evidence he's a "turncoat"! LOL! The funny bit is Lamo probably only went to the cops because he wanted to avoid getting dragged into the mess, he's probably been living under a microscope for years.

Some answers (alright, not really answers, just poking fun at your ranting moral outrage):

"......(1) How much has he been paid or will he be paid;...." I expect he will be recompensed for expenses incurred. Does it matter? You've already predetermined that he will say whatever Uncle Sam pays him to say. Strange how you lot demand that Manning is "innocent until proven guilty", but are also happy to broadcast all types of accusations against those not on Manning's side.

".....(2) During this much touted Washington trip will he be advised or coached into what to say:...." Hey, maybe we should use the same excuse to stop Manning talking to any pesky lawyers, after all they might "coach" him! The feds have the right both to review Lamo's testimony for accuracy and to advise him on what tactics/smears the defence are likely to use against him.

"....(3) How does he reconcile the varying accounts of what transpired between himself and Manning;...." Could that be because all the "accounts" are third-hand at best, and then much-twisted and rehashed to suit the political viewpoint of the repeaters? At the end of the day, the only version that matters is the one in court.

"....(4) Will the prosecutors try to get him to include Wikileaks in his 'disclosure'." Well, if Manning was stupid enough to admit to a crime in the first place, it's highly likely he blabbed the lot and did mention Wikileaks. Either way, it's hearsay evidence unless Lamo recorded the conversations, what Unlce Sam needs is concrete evidence of file transfers and planning on Wikileaks' part (such as in those Twitter records the US was after).

/who's got the popcorn?

RE: Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Ned, the idea of waiting until the trial is both sensible and salutory. However, we don't like sensible here, we prefer flaming the nitwits that insist on posting their vacuous bleatings, so I'm afriad I'm going to have to ask you to take your Killjoy sensiblities elsewhere so the rest of us can have a good laugh!

RE: Unix and mainframe growth....their demise was greatly exaggerated

"IBM is hitting on all cylinders...." Well, maybe some cylinders, but not in blades, where hp has handed them their a$$ on a plate yet again! TPM says there is no mainframe on blades and the reason is because IBM know that would kill the margins in their little mainframe monopoly. Whilst hp might argue that the NonStop kit does the same job on blades, the real mainframe-on-blades option was killed by IBM when they bought PSI.

Fot those that don't remember them, PSI (platform Solutions Inc) had a neat idea of taking the old hp Superdome and running new firmware and an emulation layer, and then plonking IBM's mainframe OS and apps on top. The result was a system that was faster than an IBM mainframe at a fraction of the price, so IBM bought up PSI and killed the product. The same PSI tricks would have made the current SD2 and blades a real IBM mainframe killer.

RE: Blades

"For non X86 blades, HP has replaced all of it's lowend and midrange servers with "blades"...." Almost correct. There's one new gen rack server - the rx2800i - and you can still buy the previous generation of racked servers if you wish. But there is no way you can pretend the massive lead in blades held by hp is all down to Itanium blades (and the SD2 chassis is a different part to the general C7000, though they share many components, but you can't put general blades into the SD2 chassis). I remember when hp and IBM were running neck-and-neck in blades, not sure how long a go it was, but for the last several years it seems that IBM have lost large amounts of share to hp blades. I'm not surprised TPM skates over that to concentrate on IBM mainframe sales.

I'm curious as to which areas Fudgeitso have lost share - was it x64 specificall,y or are they seeing a drop off in SPARC64 and/or CMT kit? Be interesting to see if the Snoreacle pick up is churn of Fudgeitso bizz or is truly incremental, but 13.6% growth is hardly "eked out", even if it is a smaller cash amount than IBM or hp.

Big thumbs up for the Linux boys - $2bn! Who said that no-one would ever make money out of that "hobbie OS"? Oh, that would be a certain Scott McNealy.

RE: Re: Dell R&D spending

Whilst a nice graph, you have to put things in context. In Dell's defence, you could point out that Dell does not operate in as many areas as hp or IBM (IIRC, both hp and IBM do lots of really expensive, high-tech R&D into nano-materials and the like, and I'm betting few companies match hp for R&D on ink technologies), so it is unlikley to spend as much on R&D overall, but might be spending just as much as hp or IBM in a particular field. I'd prefer to see a chart of R&D spend in server and storage technologies over a space of ten years, to see if the trend of R&D investment is rising or falling in particular areas, otherwise you could get a year with a spike due to a new product range being introduced (think of the amount Apple would have spent on the original iPhone, which would have been an overall additional R&D spend, but probably had a negative impact on R&D spending in certain other areas).

I can also remember a period when Dell servers were at least acceptable (and I have high standards), and in some areas superior to the competition (we used to hate the hp cable arms and wished they could be more like Dell's neat designs).

CISCO has had a problem for years in that the old monopoly that allowed them to rake in fat margins is under serious attack. They used to be able to maintain an advantage (and therefore margins) by offering vastly superior kit to the competition, but now that advantage has been seriously eroded and people have dared to try cheaper options rather than pay the CISCO tax. Whilst not fatal to CISCO - they're still making plenty of cash - it is fatal in the eyes of Wall Street which demands growth rather than reality, hence the desperate attempts by CISCO to branch out. Problem is they may have left it too late, and it may require a merger with someone like Dell to give them viable width. Sun left it too late and diversified badly, which probably opened a few eyes at CISCO and Dell.