The names Cisco and Ferrari are not often mentioned in the same breath.
They were on Tuesday, when Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins unveiled what he calls the company's most significant new piece of networking hardware in a decade.
Cisco has taken advantage of Pininfarina, the Italian firm that has been designing Ferrari sports cars since the 1950s, to make its new network switches as elegant as possible - given that it is the boxes that sit in the data center.
"We're trying to make everything softer and more ergonomic," said Sachin Gupta, vice president of business products at Cisco, in an interview at the San Francisco product launch. "We wanted to leave no stone unturned."
Cisco spent several years and dedicated thousands of engineers to create a new family of switches - the Catalyst 9000 - built for the era of connected devices. It is no longer just computers and phones that spit data, but everything from the lighting system to the air conditioning units connected to the network.
Gupta said he met personally with four Pininfarina designers at Cisco headquarters in San Jose, California.
Even with the design updates, the large white boxes certainly are not confused with the luxury Italian sports cars. But Gupta said the real focus was on usability and functionality. The ejector handles are easier to access and the internal fan can be reached through the back of the device, cutting the amount of work needed to fix it.
The products were also tested through user sessions so that they could gather comments for the consultants to implement.
"It's modernizing the experience for the hardware age," said Gupta.
Cisco has worked with Pininfarina in the past, especially for a firewall device in its security portfolio.
