Gear from once-unstoppable networking giant Cisco is showing up on internet auction sites at bargain prices.
Since the company announced plans to write off $US2.2 billion of excess inventory piling up in warehouses around the world, sites including eBay, Dovebid.com and Overstock.com have been featuring Cisco products at knock-down prices.
Last week Computerworld found two AS5300 access servers on eBay for which bidding had reached $US1000.
They were available immediately for a buyer willing to pay $US10,000.
And an AS5300 with typical price tag of $US50,000 sold last week on DoveBid for $US4200.
Fifty-thousand-dollar Cisco 7500 routers are also selling online for less than $US2500.
Cisco New Zealand head Tim Hemingway says the company is overstocking sub-components such as DSPs (digital signal processor) and not complete products. “The word is they’re not going to be brought back into the market in any way, shape or form because otherwise it would be like we only did it for the books.”
Inventory in New Zealand is at “normal levels”, he says. Local distributors Tech Pacific and Express Data only have complete products and “they’re both in a very good position in terms of sell-rate of the product”.
Reports from the US say Cisco has almost $US1 billion in complete or nearly complete products that the company admits will never be sold.