The question is not where is David, but what is he going to use for a slingshot

Steve Taylor and Jim Metzler over on the WAN newsletter at Network World have a good article up called Where's David. In the article both of them lament the fate of several competitors who over the years seemed to be worthy competitors to Cisco, but have fallen by the wayside to become detritus under the feet of the networking Goliath. They then look at the usual suspects and wannabes to play David today to Cisco's Goliath. Their take is Foundry and Extreme have nice technology, but nice or better technology alone is not going to fell Goliath.  They think HP tries really hard to keep it a secret that they are the 2nd leading switch vendor (not sure some of my friends at HP ProCurve would appreciate that).  They think Nortel and Juniper could be Cisco rivals, but they have not exhibited the stones (no pun intended) to do it yet.  They are going to continue the conversation in future newsletters.  One commenter, Bryan Ruhf said he fears that a monolithic Cisco culture will only fall when a chink in the armor of Cisco's technology is exploited and the results may be catastrophic for networks the world over.

My take on this is that the David to slew Cisco is not among the current cast of contenders.  Much like no one knew much about the young David in King Saul's army until he fought Goliath, the David of the networking world is probably not recognized today as being the potential giant killer.  The other thing is the new David needs his own slingshot.  That will be the key.  You are not going to beat Cisco by outselling them, out marketing them or out spending them.  You need a better slingshot.  What new technology in networking or other advantage can someone come up with that will make the CIOs of Fortune 1000 companies say that they are willing to look at non-Cisco solutions and hit Cisco right between the eyes.  Also, whoever comes up with this better slingshot obviously becomes acquisition bait for Cisco or one of the other big boys to buy.  Can a David arise out of the ranks of the smaller players, resist the temptation to cash out quickly and become strong enough to fell Goliath?  Honestly, I don't know, but if they did they would certainly deserve the title of King.