Cisco Rolling Out Big New Box

After some false starts, a few rejections and the inevitable delays, Cisco (CSCO Quote) will wheel out its much anticipated megarouter Tuesday at a half-day celebration in San Jose, Calif.

Seismologists and industry watchers alike will probably take note of Cisco's belated introduction of telecom's largest Internet traffic sorter, known in most circles as the HFR, or huge fast router. Cisco is expected to name the new device Cisco Routing System 1, or CRS1, an answer to rival Juniper's (JNPR Quote) big T640 "Gibson," which has been on the market for two years.

Perhaps bigger still, Cisco's HFR operates on a new software system -- tentatively dubbed IOX -- that the company hopes to extend across its corner of the industry, say analysts.

Cisco rode to success in the 1990s on the advent and widespread adoption of routers, devices that link and manage traffic over computer networks. But the data networking king has seen its dominance of the core router market dwindle in the past year as Juniper won more of the business. ...