Apparently the mentality at Cisco now is that if they paint a box green and write Cisco on it, people will buy it.
As a longtime Cisco competitor, I can tell you that that is their mentality, and they are right. There are a huge number of IT departments that buy Cisco just because it says Cisco, and refuse to consider anything else. Whether it's for purchasing convenience, politics, job protection, or just reasons of laziness, there are people who just buy what their Cisco rep wants them to buy. If you manage to actually get into a bakeoff test at these places, network engineers will actively try to sabotage the non-Cisco gear in an attempt to get it to fail, and thus provide justification for spending 50% more on the Cisco gear because "it's the only product that meets our stringent requirements." It is a sad thing to watch, but a fact of life if you compete against Cisco. The trick is recognizing those places early in the sales process and adjusting your efforts accordingly so you don't waste too much time.
Ya'll hear about the geometer who went to the beach to catch some rays and became a tangent ?