Egenera CEO stresses openness in competing with 'Cisco, Cisco, Cisco'

Network World - Egenera CEO Pete Manca says the company was 10 years ahead of its time in targeting the converged data center infrastructure, but its smooth transition from a hardware-focused company to a software-oriented one in recent years has enabled it to stay in the thick of what's now a booming market pursued aggressively by Cisco, HP and others. As part of our ongoing IDG Enterprise CEO Interview Series, IDGE Chief Content Officer John Gallant spoke recently with Manca about Egenera's strategic shift, its partners and competitors, and a big new product announcement.

[[ Product Announcement: Egenera jumps into cloud management ]]

What's Egenera's mission today?

The mission from day one, and now we're 12 years old, has been to simplify the data center, and we do that through converged infrastructure. 12 years ago when we were pushing converged infrastructure, everybody kind of scratched their head and said, "What do you mean? What is it?"