S. Petry, I appreciate your comments and feedback, but I think there are a few points in the article you may have missed. I hope this clears some of that up.

I'm not sure what your point is here. Torrey Point committed an act that Juniper considered negative enough to de-authorize the company as a certified partner. So there's that. As for Cisco, once again I'll point out the article explicitly states that what Cisco did was 1) not illegal, and 2) not uncommon at all.

Again, I think the article makes clear that the purchasing of competitors' equipment is a common practice in the tech industry. Where things get a little gray is Cisco's procurement of beta or pre-release products. Some folks (like Dr. Abramson in the article and some folks here in the discussion) believe that's still fair game, while others think it's shady. I'm presenting the information, not making a judgment about the actions. And yes, I believe a lot of manufacturers do this, maybe even most. What made this situation unique was the involvement of Juniper's partner of the year betraying the company and giving Cisco access to cutting edge, early stage technology.

I can tell you that after spending considerable time researching the matter for this article that I absolutely do not believe that to be true. Not a single person I spoke with or received information from, whether directly connected to the Torrey Point-Cisco dealings or knowledgeable about "competitive analysis labs" at other vendors, believes the purpose of those efforts are for benchmarking or compatibility testing. A major manufacturer isn't going to pay a premium to get a hold of its competitors products just to see if they play nice with their own equipment. In fact, Cisco says in the article they buy competitors' products in part to make sure their own IP isn't being used in those products. How do you think they determine that?

I wrote the article. First, I can tell you unequivocally that the Snowden disclosures had nothing to do with this article. Furthermore, I don't think the article makes a judgment about Cisco's part in this matter; in fact, the article cites a legal expert in tech IP who explicitly states that Cisco's actions are in no way illegal (even if the product was procured before it was commercially available) and that buying your competitor's works for testing and reverse engineering is a required practice in the industry and "part of what makes markets work." Second, I take issue with your characterization of the article as spin, and your assertion that fair articles don't get page views. Lastly, I get the distinct feeling that you did not read the article. I may be wrong about that, and if so, I apologize for the incorrect assumption. But given your claim that the article is Snowden-inspired when there's no mention of the NSA or Snowden in the article (not to mention the article is more about Torrey Point Group and Juniper than Cisco), surely you can understand why I made the assumption.