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I think Meraki was the 4th startup that I ever invested in (first was Wufoo). When we visited their office in Mountain View, it was full of "Meraki Minis" (their first batch of hardware). I asked how much money they had raised so far, and their response was, "none". They were so scrappy that they had managed to build the first batch (which was partially pre-sold) for practically nothing. And they somehow got the offi…
That said, I find it fascinating that my first experience with wireless gear was with Aeronet (which was also $1B+ buy for Cisco) And of course Linksys ($1B+). And now Meraki ($1B+) So here is the multi-billion dollar question, "Why does Cisco keep spending billions of dollars on WiFi companies and still they aren't leading the market in WiFi innovation?"
[1] http://www.ruckuswireless.com/press/releases/20121116-ruckus...
Well, looks like pg called it on this one. "MAKE HARDWARE WITH NON-SUCKY SOFTWARE." "okay" "Here, have a billion." Obviously, I am omitting all of the actual work for entertainment value. Edit: isn't a YC company, I don't want to confuse things. http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html "27. Hardware/software hybrids. Most hackers find hardware projects alarming. You have to deal with messy, expensive physical stuff. But Mer…
Calling their solution "non-sucky" is an understatement.
You're saying they suck?
Can you explain exactly why... as a tech design integrator fro major clients who really like and use them - I need to know how they suck in a very specific way so I may avoid such mistakes....
wait... areyou saying they are way far above non-sucky?
Sorry the song of your people is foreign to me.
How fortunate in the short term, and unfortunate in the long term. (funny story, Cisco's workplace resources group's bonuses are based on (total revenue) / headcount+workplace costs. Instead of incentives based on retention and growth, the group gets a bigger bonus every time a group is downsized, or they close an office.)
Airespce brain trust cashed out and jumped out and left Cisco's wifi product poor at best...
So many mistakes... they have solidified their offering - but if you were an airespce/cisco customer when that happened -- it was horrific.
One of the things mentioned in the acquisition FAQ was that one of the key differentiators was the Meraki business model. Can anyone shed more light on exactly what is different? EDIT: Also, since I have never priced any of their gear before, any idea on ballpark costs (list) would be nice.
EDIT: just to clarify - very large enterprises like to get their orders directly from Cisco, with a middleman to cover the "non-direct" status in order to apreciate the largest discount they can (typically ~47-49%)... this eliminates the overhead of dealing with ordering out of distribution - but it murders your lead times and deliverability...
Meraki was one of the most up-front straight forward orders: "Yeah it's in stock and in Fremont - we can have it to you next day, or 4 hours, so no need to order a spare MX400..."
I'm glad this pivot worked!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Calling their solution "non-sucky" is an understatement.
Can you elaborate? You're saying they suck? Can you explain exactly why... as a tech design integrator fro major clients who really like and use them - I need to know how they suck in a very specific way so I may avoid such mistakes.... wait... areyou saying they are way far above non-sucky? Sorry the song of your people is foreign to me.
Congratulations guys (if you're reading). I'm sure this has nothing at all to do with Ruckus going public [1] :-) Its a great exit and Cisco certainly has the manufacturing and marketing reach to take you to the next level. That said, I find it fascinating that my first experience with wireless gear was with Aeronet (which was also $1B+ buy for Cisco) And of course Linksys ($1B+). And now Meraki ($1B+) So here is the…
That said they've done a fairly good job of growing those companies within their area (Aeronet as Enterprise, Linksys as Home) through incremental improvements.
This may be intentional behavior on Cisco's part to control their exposure to large project failures. IIRC there've been cases where Cisco employees couldn't get support to develop something new so they quit and once Cisco saw their success they were acquired back in.
I wonder how similar this is to Ubiquiti's UniFi enterprise WiFi system. I'm a big fan, UniFi is just excellent as is their point to point/WISP solution airMAX, very inexpensive too. For example, I recently set up an airMAX 280Mbps point to point link over about 1/2 mile using 2x Nanostation M5's for ... $140! Their airFiber system gives you 1.4Gbps over up to 10km for about $2.5K for the pair of radios. http://ubnt.…