Reed said because of Cisco’s dominance, it is in a position to initially force the idea on end users, but there may be a backlash if there is a perception this is just another money grab.

"I’d like to have the choice both ways," to combine software with maintenance and hardware or to separate them, said Bruce Politzer, corporate network consultant for Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, who manages hundreds of Cisco routers across the company’s WAN. "In some sites, I’d like to just stick something in and let it run forever," he said. "In other sites, I want to be on the leading edge, and I need to deploy new features constantly."

With Cisco’s current model, any device that gets a licensed, supported IOS version includes a slew of services and support extras that may not be necessary, Politzer said. "I may not [want] to buy a whole line of services just to have IOS," he said.

But Forrester Research senior analyst Robert Whiteley said Cisco is right: The company needs to evolve its software model.

Whiteley said the ubiquity of IOS, the myriad features it supports, and the fact the software is basically thrown in for free when users buy routers with support contracts all add up to a sometimes confusing pricing model.

"There is a lot of value locked up in [IOS]," Whiteley said. "I don’t want to say it’s money on the table [for Cisco], but as network products become more intelligent, that means IOS becomes a more valuable asset. So decoupling that makes sense for Cisco."

-Rodney Gedda, Computerworld Today (Australia)
(Phil Hochmuth of Network World (US) contributed to this story)

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