Working The Third Shift: Tips To Avoid Counterfeits When Buying And Selling Used Cisco

Telepresence News and Events October, 2008

WOW! What an amazing month for the Telepresence Industry! First off, did anyone see the Cisco TelePresence Human Network commercials that are airing during this seasons NFL Football games? A great sign that public adoption of Telepresence is near.

In other news from the 24/7 Telepresence Breaking News reel at the Telepresence Forum, BT announced that they’ve launched their inter-company Telepresence solution, Proctor & Gamble implemented new Telepresence rooms, Polycom received a “Rising Star” for their innovations and Verizon Teamed with Cisco to offer new productivity enhancing services using Cisco’s collaboration portfolio. Did I mention this was just a few of the Telepresence highlights from this past week? Hundreds of Telepresence news articles hit the wire this last month, and if the past is any indication of the future, we’ll see those Telepresence news posts double by Spring 2009.

I also noticed that companies like Digital Video Enterprises, Telepresence Options and of course our Telepresence Forum were listed in the Open Directory Project at www.DMOZ.org. Pretty big news considering Telepresence didn’t exist, or even have a category just a month ago or so in the human edited ODP.

Our website traffic amongst our 345+ Telepresence related domains has tripled since early August, another indication that Telepresence is getting ready to explode onto Main Street. People are “hearing” of it, people are “researching” it, and once they’ve performed their due diligence, they’ll “see and feel” what the pioneers of the Telepresence industry have been saying. Telepresence is near; Telepresence is here.

Well that’s it for now Readers. We hope you stop by the Telepresence Forum to learn a little about what the differences between plain old video conferencing and Telepresence are. C'mon by, sign up (free by the way), watch a Telepresence video or two, and drop us a line or comment with your Telepresence thoughts and experiences.

Take care , hope to see you on the Forum!

Your Editor and Administrator - L II
"Ride on the Next Plane of Existence" TM

San Francisco, California January 17th, 2006: If you've ever strolled down the streets of New York, you?re familiar with the enterprising street vendors offering imitation Gucci handbags and fake Rolex watches at a fraction the price of retail. Don?t be surprised if you?re offered a Cisco router on your next stroll down Canal Street. While clear statistics specific to the network hardware market are not available, according to a white paper by AGMA and consulting company, KPMG, counterfeit products account for nearly 10% of the overall IT products market. So whether it?s luxury goods or high-end data networking, illicit manufacturers have seized the opportunity to flood the market with fake merchandise.

Third-Shift

Recently, there has been an explosion of counterfeit hardware that has hit the market. While these items can be poorly made knock-offs, in some cases are actually made by companies licensed by Cisco and other companies to manufacture their hardware. Only the discerning eye of an experienced reseller can hope to detect the physical subtleties between the Cisco original and fake. Companies in China, for example, already have the experience, manufacturing capacity, and technical know-how to produce Cisco's products. And sometimes they run extra shifts or a "third shift" to produce a surplus of product, which they distribute illegally on the black market. The result has been a surge in the level of counterfeit products available on the US market. Often, these products can be traded unknowingly to either the buyer or seller. That is until a problem arises.

These counterfeit products have a dramatically higher failure rate due to lax manufacturing controls. Buyers often find out they've been duped when exercising a warranty. Naturally, Cisco will refuse to honor a warranty on counterfeit product hence the end user is stuck with a lemon. Sometimes users will find out an item is counterfeit when they attempt to register a serial number, only to discover that what they have is a duplicated number, which has already been assigned to another buyer.

Gray-Market Deals

While savvy buyers will sometimes be wary of fire sale pricing on new Cisco hardware, counterfeiters have become increasingly smarter and have started marketing these products as "used" and leaking these products to the secondary market. Following the dot-com bust, buyers became accustomed to buying new out-of-box equipment at liquidation prices. This created a new channel for counterfeit sellers to slip their wares into the gray market with less scrutiny. By selling a new "counterfeit" item, as used, deeply discounted prices are less likely to raise a red flag for buyers.

Safe Tips

Most buyers don't realize they have counterfeit Cisco hardware until it's installed and begins to have issues. Excessive network outages and failures are often a signal that something in your network is a fake. This begs the question of how to protect yourself from buying counterfeit equipment.

1. Be wary of anything being sold from China. Sometimes Chinese sellers will even use fictitious names and pose as an American company. Typically English language skills can be a tip-off. If it sounds like an ad or email was written by Borat, don't buy.

2. Develop relationships with trusted vendors. Companies that have a long-standing reputation and extensive client base will most likely only buy from trusted sources. By working with someone you know and trust, you are less likely to encounter issues with fake gear.

3. Make sure your vendor checks serial numbers in the vendor database for EVERY piece they purchase.

4. Use your eyes, and look for anything unusual. Inspect the item carefully for irregularities in logo size, packaging materials, holograms and chip sets.

Summary: Helpful tips for avoiding purchasing Counterfeit Cisco Hardware.

Peter Gilberd has a collective 10 years experience in IT sales. He is currently the President for Townsend Assets Group (TAG), a leading reseller of pre-owned data networking and telecom equipment. For more comprehensive information on the process of selling used hardware, refer to TAG's Buy-Sell Used Cisco page.

Custom Search

To learn more about Telepresence, the revolutionary new style of immersive video conferencing; visit these websites:

Telepresence Today - Telepresence information and editor qualified headline news

On Telepresence - Information, videos and fact sheets "on Telepresence"

Telepresence 101 - All Telepresence, all the time. Telepresence 101

Telepresence.cc - Telepresence vs. Video Conferencing

Go Telepresence! - "Ride on the Next Plane of Existence" - Go Telepresence!

Telepresence Report - 24/7 breaking Telepresence related news and information