IBM Corp decision to stand by its partner Kalpana Inc (CI No 2,660), even though it has now been acquired by Cisco Systems Inc marks a significant expansion of IBM’s pre-existing agreement with Kalpana. The original agreement was signed in September, six weeks before Cisco acquired Kalpana, and covered only Token Ring switching. Now however, it has been broadened out to also include Ethernet workgroup switching: essentially, it now gives IBM access to the technology behind Cisco’s Catalyst workgroup switch, launched last year. IBM has yet to go public on exactly what plans it has for the technology, but Nick Francis, Cisco’s director of marketing for IBM products, says that the two companies’ products will be essentially the same, although with value changes including port density, and operational features. IBM is not sa ying when the product will be launched, but Cisco’s Francis commented that our part of the work is done, implying that a launch may be fairly imminent. The situation regarding Cisco’s marketing of the Token Ring switching products that Kalpana developed with IBM is less clear, and according to Francis, Cisco has not yet decided whether to add them to its portfolio. The reason for the indecision is Cisco’s long-standing development relationship with Madge NV, which dates back to December 1990, under which Cisco licensed Madge’s Fastmac Token Ring technology for use in its routers. Cisco recently expanded its relationship with the British-born company to include Token Ring switches. Although this agreement is intended to result in a range of switches spanning from the backbone to the client level, it will also include a low-end workgroup switch that overlaps in functionality with the product jointly developed by IBM and Kalpana.
