Rumored shenanigans behind Cisco's $655 million defective memory fiasco
"What is worse is that there are internal notices (seen them with my own eyes)
about the issue that instruct engineers, be they TAC, HTTS or 'Advanced' Services, not to disclose this memory issue. The guidance was to come up with some other technical excuse for the failure, but NEVER explicitly disclose the known memory component issue to customers. The company was worried about creating a perception within the customer base that they had quality issues."
Rumor British Telecom is currently experiencing major network outages because of defective Cisco memory.
Alarmingly: Cisco has yet to publish a single Field Notice.
Last week Cisco's vice president of tech support, Curtis Hill (who has 1,021 direct reports), stated the following about Cisco's $655 million defective memory fiasco:
"Cisco first became aware of this issue in December 2010.
"Only in late 2012 did field failures and supplier review data point to a potential customer impact."
Well, because I just received the following rumored shenanigans behind Cisco's $655 million defective memory fiasco:
As much as JC floundering on "Internet of Everything" is ripe for picking, the bigger item to pick on is the memory issue.
It is only just now coming out into the open. Problem is that this is an issue that was known inside the company since at least 2010.
What is worse is that there are internal notices (seen them with my own eyes)
about the issue that instruct engineers, be they TAC, HTTS or "Advanced" Services, not to disclose this memory issue.
The guidance was to come up with some other technical excuse for the failure, but NEVER explicitly disclose the known memory component issue to customers (unless it was one of the select customers that knew about it by making a stink to their account team).
Just RMA it and make the issue go away.
It pissed me off to no end running into the issue working with some folks I know outside of the company and having to feed them a load of manure instead just being 100% honest with them.
Why was it like this?
The company was worried about creating a perception within the customer base that they had quality issues.
Strange, but if all of these modules and devices are falling over dead due to a known memory defect and customers are starting to notice commonalities in the hardware, the company has quality issues.
