Cisco To Abandon Support For Third-Party Memory

In a move that could cause headaches for solution providers servicing Cisco Systems gear, the vendor plans to discontinue technical support for third-party memory products used with its network equipment, said sources close to Cisco.

Furthermore, Cisco plans to abandon its list of approved third-party vendors, the sources said.

If a customer contacts Cisco with a support issue that includes other vendors, Cisco may refuse to provide technical assistance, even if the Cisco product is under warranty, said the sources.

A Cisco spokesman said some third-party memory vendors have been falsely claiming that their products are fully guaranteed and approved by Cisco. Cisco will continue to provide support for its products under warranty but not for third-party devices, the spokesman said.

Tim Jaeger, owner of Apparatus Sales, a Denver-based solution provider, said he thinks Cisco is making a mistake. "As competitive as the marketplace is right now, they can potentially irritate and alienate customers over third-party memory," Jaeger said. "If you're talking 'Memory By Joe,' that's understandable.

But there are a lot of quality [vendors] out there. If they have an issue with third-party quality, they should trim the number of third parties they accept instead of cutting them all."

In many cases, Cisco-branded memory products cost more and raise the price of the solution to end users, Jaeger said. For example, 64 Mbytes of flash memory from Cisco costs more than twice as much as it would from a formerly approved third party, Jaeger said. "And 256 Mbytes is almost double," he said. "It makes the other vendors wooing resellers more attractive, obviously."

Michael Israel, senior vice president of New York-based solution provider AMC, said he believes the strategy will help combat gray-market activity in the Cisco world.

"I think it's a good move. I wish they had done it earlier," Israel said.

LARRY HOOPER contributed to this story.