Is everything from Cisco much more expensive than other brands?

No

a.       Cisco enterprise level and low-end products are much higher than other competitors, e.g. HP, Huawei.

b.       Cisco high-end switches are lower than other typical Western brands, e.g. Brocade, but higher than Chinese brands like Huawei.

c.       Cisco high-end routers are higher than other brands like Huawei or Juniper.

d.       Cisco DWDM / OTN are similar or sometimes cheaper than other main vendors like Huawei, Infinnera, etc.

e.       Cisco BRAS / DPI / mobile 3GPP servers are cheaper than other main vendors like Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, etc.

f.        Cisco wireless and security products are similar to other main Western vendors.

Does Cisco’s cloud / SDN strategy make sense?

Cisco now supports both Openflow and Open Daylight features with the new onePK program suite. For service provider market, the end-to-end programmable solution is ready from Layer 0 (DWDM/ROADM) to Layer 1~2(MPLS/OTN/Switch) and Layer 3 (Routing) under the new NCS 2000/4000/6000 product portfolio, and Cisco is also mapping the new onePK capability to existing products like Nexus 7000, C6800 switches, etc.