Cisco confirms interest in router startup - BCN Systems

Cisco has confirmed its interest a router startup BCN Systems, Inc. which architects, designs and produces a family of next generation networking products. Computer World :

We believe BCN is developing next generation enterprise/service provider edge routers to replace the 7600 and/or 10000 series at Cisco," state Nikos Theodosopoulos in a recent bulletin on Juniper's third-quarter results. This was mentioned in the Juniper bulletin as an example where Cisco and Juniper are poaching each other's talent to develop competing products.

The founder and CEO of BCN is Michael Beesley, who was the lead engineer on several mid-range routers at Cisco before his departure in 1997. After that, Beesley was also one of the lead engineers on Juniper's M40, the lead engineer on the M20 and "pivotal" in the design and implementation of the company's T640 core router, according to the BCN Web site.

Other observers believe some of the Procket Networks intellectual property Cisco acquired for US$89 million six months ago has found a home at BCN and in the next-generation 7600 and 10000 series successors. Back in June, Cisco Routing Technology Group Vice President Mike Volpi said the Procket engineers would be working on service provider edge extensions to Cisco's new, modular IOS-XR operating system, and a follow-on generation to the 40G bit/sec silicon packet processors Cisco unveiled with last May's launch of the CRS-1 core router, but oriented towards lower-end systems.