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Cisco cracks down on channel over counterfeit equipment
By Patrick Gray, ZDNet Australia
30 May 2003 01:10 PM

Networking heavyweight Cisco has warned its Asia-Pacific channel partners of an "aggressive" crackdown on counterfeit product in a memo which indicates some partners have already tried to rip off customers.

From 1 June, Cisco will "aggressively pursue" any reseller caught shifting fake Cisco network gear, according to a letter sent by the networking giant's president of Asia Pacific Operations, Gordon Astles, to its Asia Pacific channel partners.

"We expect our partners and distributors to share our commitment and support our efforts to protect the Cisco brand. For the benefit of our customers we will be aggressively pursuing these measures from 1 June 2003," the letter says. "We advise you to ensure no counterfeit product is acquired or passed on to end-users."

The aggressive stance was taken after third party products were found with Cisco labels on them. Other, non-Cisco products had been passed off as being manufactured by the networking giant.

"Cisco will consider action against any party who is proven to have taken unfair advantage of the Cisco brand. This includes channel partners/distributors that engage in counterfeiting or the sale of counterfeit product," the letter said.

Australian Cisco channel partners are understood to have received the letter, dated 26 May. This is not the first time that Cisco has faced these types of issues in the Asia Pacific region.

Chinese based Huawei Technologies is facing a lawsuit after it allegedly copied source code from Cisco's IOS router operating system into its own operating system. Huawei works with Cisco's competitor, 3COM, in the network routing space.

Cisco was not available for comment at the time of writing.

© ZDNet. 2003

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