Burton Speaks

This is a stressful week at work because we're moving our headquarters and a job title of mine is, among other, "Network Administrator"... I think I'll talk about networking companies.

Let's go in reverse order. First I'm going to talk about Cisco (the ugly), a company whose products give me no end of headaches. As I've previously mentioned, their website is impossible to get actual information off of and they get by producing arcane products because they're Cisco and they control 50% of the market. (They claim they control about 70% or so, but the chart they showed me was in dollar sales and since their equipment is literally twice the prices of the competitions - at least according to the quotes we were looking at from them.)

Then there's the bad. Let me talk about SonicWall for a moment. I mention them because I spend over an hour on hold with them today and never had an issue resolved; I had to call back (from a different phone) and complain because I was on hold for so long (75+ minutes, in total) and never got support. The manual on their website contains incorrect terminology and - despite being the latest download - doesn't match up to the product we have at all. In fact, due to my experience I'd NEVER recommend a SonicWall product to anyone. Ever.

Finally, there's the good. That would be HP's Procurve Networking Division. I am more than impressed by them. My company purchased over $75K dollars worth of equipment from them (Cisco wanted over $180 for lesser equipment) and it's good stuff. But the kicker is the FREE 8-5 M-F support. I call their FREE support and press one for routing switches and I'm immediately transfered to a native English-speaking expert. It's a fantastic experience. They recommended that I make a change and I said "Just a minute" and the response was "Take all the time you need; I want to get this fixed." They offer incredible service and an equally incredible price. To all you networking people out there: HP's got the right stuff.