Cisco poaching engineers from software-defined network competitors

Cisco's mysterious spin-in hiring talent from SDN vendors

Shamus McGillicuddy, News Director

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I think it's safe to say that Cisco's answer to software-defined networking and OpenFlow is starting to take shape.

Om Malik reports that Insieme (or Insiemi, depending on whom you talk to), a mysterious spin-in subsidiary of Cisco Systems, is aggressively recruiting engineering talent from hot start-ups, including Arista Networks, Big Switch Networks and Nicira Networks. Om says that Cisco/Insieme apparently tried and failed to poach from Arista, but it succeeded in grabbing four executives from Nicira and one from Big Switch, two companies that are major names in the emerging software-defined networking (SDN) and network virtualization space.

As Brad Casemore's excellent blog from a couple weeks ago points out, Cisco has a history of propping up spin-in start-ups, which use Cisco cash (and Cisco employees) to build new technology outside its traditional bureaucratic product development structure. Cisco usually maintains a majority stake in the spin-in, with an option to buy the rest. When the spin-in company has something fully-baked, Cisco buys the entire company and welcomes back its former employees. 
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