[c-nsp] Counterfeit gear (was "service unsupported-linecard")

[Łukasz Bromirski]

Eric Van Tol wrote:

> Of course it is.  I imagine that a company like Cisco, which I'm sure
> suffers the most from counterfeit gear, loses millions every year in
> support costs alone.  Cisco doesn't just accept the bad parts if they
> are shipped to them from an RMA.  They have an entire in-house group,
> which I believe consists of an investigative team that works with local
> law enforcement, that tracks down where the parts were bought.

Yes, it's covered under Brand Protection activities:

  http://www.cisco.com/go/brandprotection/

> What Cisco *needs* to do is stop ignoring reputable secondary market
> resellers.  They should work closely with these resellers to "recertify"
> genuine gear.  They're losing out on a lot of revenue, but it's their
> own fault - there are resellers out there that have tried to work with
> Cisco and they've been flat-out ignored.

Define 'reputable' and 'secondary' market reseller. IOS licensing is an
issue here one way or the other, and 'recertifying' hardware of unknown
origin can actually happen when there's service to be attached to it.
There's also distinction between used, genuine gear sold by companies
not having any business relationship with Cisco (grey market) and
gear that's counterfeit, cloned - whatever. It's clearly stated under
that URL above.

Please bear in mind, that while I don't know which resellers been
'flat-out ignored', and what actually you mean by that, it doesn't
permit them to break the law (if they do break it of course). Cisco
channel program is quite simple, and you can't be ignored if you
follow the rules. Simple as that, there's no hidden magic there.

There's some additional info here:
http://blogs.cisco.com/news/2007/08/protecting_against_gray_market.html

-- 
"Don't expect me to cry for all the     |               Łukasz Bromirski
  reasons you had to die" -- Kurt Cobain |    http://lukasz.bromirski.net