New Cabletron CEO talks about the future

by Bob Wallace

December 5, 2000 —

Today's replacement of Cabletron Systems Inc. co-founder, CEO and chairman of
the board Craig Benson with technology guru Piyush Patel marked a more aggressive focus
on emerging communications technologies that can be developed for both corporate
customers and service providers.

Patel, 43, was the brains behind start-up Yago Systems Inc.'s advanced Layer 3
routing switch, which -- since Cabletron bought the company last January -- has become
the hottest product in the company's 16-year history. Cabletron went from having no
product in that market to being the market leader in that area, according to the
Dell'Oro Group, a Portola Valley, Calif., research firm.

In announcing his departure, Benson acknowledged that Patel, with his deep
technology knowledge and having served as Cabletron's senior vice president of
worldwide research and development, was better suited to be Cabletron's CEO going
forward than he was.

Patel discussed Cabletron's multifaceted technology strategy with Computerworld
senior editor Bob Wallace.

CW: What markets and technologies do you see as poised for the greatest growth?

Patel: We want to focus more and more on products for cable operators, the xDSL
market and pushing our routing switch -- which has caching and load balancing -- as a
package with servers for Web hosting operations.

CW: Given your stated goal of increasing the company's focus in selling to service
providers, what does that mean for corporate users of your enterprise products? Will
your commitment to that business decrease, stay the same or increase?

Patel: On the enterprise side, we fully plan on increasing our market presence. Our
commitment will increase as we will spend more aggressively in this area. It's our
stronghold, and we will protect it.

CW: What can you do with technology to improve enterprise products?

Patel: The two biggest areas where we'll be spending big is to apply technology to
increase the number of feeds and speeds on enterprise products, which will translate
into lower prices for users.

CW: What are the top enterprise networking areas you're focusing most on?

Patel: The next big areas are quality-of-service and policy-based management. The
next big area for users will be supporting guaranteed quality for voice and video
applications from the desktop to the [data center]. And the ability to set policies
[for network usage] is another key area.

CW: Will Cabletron still be known first as an equipment vendor?

Patel: A lot of work in the past has been on the hardware side, but we're looking to
expand in the network management software and professional services areas going
forward. We would look for partners to develop applications to sit atop Spectrum
[Cabletron's network management package] and are considering either acquiring or taking
a large equity stake in a professional services company to gain critical mass.

CW: What can you do to build your presence in the emerging converged voice/data
market?

Patel: In the voice area, we would look to partner with large telecom companies to
gain expertise in [traditional] PBXs and their control software, while looking closely
at promising start-ups for innovation.

CW: Cabletron has talked of selling to service providers for at least a few years,
even going so far as to name former Nynex exec Don Reed as Cabletron's CEO. Reed left
about seven months later, and little has been heard about proogress in that area.
What's up?

Patel: Don was brought in to do that. Now we have the product base for service
providers. We've been building relationships, which entails working with them to make
sure the products have all the right features... . Ten percent of our revenues come
from service providers, a figure we expect to grow at a lot faster clip as confidence
in our products builds.

CW: What new developments do you see as being on the horizon?

Patel: We'll probably expand our business [equipment resale] with Compaq by having
our professional services people work with theirs to provide better systems integration
of our [respective] products.

Computerworld