It's Not Just What You Say, It's How You Say It

I've been a bit under the weather today, so I've been building up some venom and now it's time to rant. Still digging out from RSA, I came across a press release from 3Com, "3Com Chief Technology Officer Unveils Bi-Planar Network Vision." It just got me going. What the hell is a bi-planar? It sounds like something Bob Villa would use to build a bench, not a new vision for networking.

This brings me to one of the most important lessons I learned in 8 years on the marketing side. It has very little to do with what you say, it's how you say it.

Now 3Com has lots of challenges, and clearly they have to figure out how to differentiate in a world dominated by Cisco, and candidly, a "Bi-Planar" network vision is not the answer. It's indecipherable and once they start talking about control planes and connectivity planes, my head explodes. I'm pretty sure it's not the head cold I'm trying to beat down either.

Here are some more great sound bites from the release:

In a Bi-Planar Network, purpose-built network control nodes provide the full access, attack, and application control that switches and routers cannot fulfill. These intelligent network control nodes are capable of fine-grain IP flow classification and policy enforcement, and are deployed seamlessly, cost-effectively, and with no change to existing routers, switches, or applications. 

Huh? Now compare that to Cisco's "Self-Defending Network" architecture. See what I mean? You can understand what they are talking about. It's easy to grasp. Bi-Planar Network, not so much.

As evidenced by 3Com's lame attempt at pushing their new vision, it's easy to snipe at Cisco, but much harder to bring forward a compelling and understandable vision. All of you vendors out there, if you want to win the title, you need to knock the champ out.