{"id":842,"date":"2019-02-13T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-13T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nl1g1e2381-staging.onrocket.site\/does-intent-based-marketing-really-suck\/"},"modified":"2023-11-01T07:52:24","modified_gmt":"2023-11-01T07:52:24","slug":"does-intent-based-marketing-really-suck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.forwardnetworks.com\/blog\/2019\/02\/13\/does-intent-based-marketing-really-suck\/","title":{"rendered":"Does intent-based marketing really suck?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, on February 8, 2019, Packet Pushers published our second podcast<\/a> with them covering a range of customer use case updates and new features like our Network Query Engine (NQE)<\/a>, VMware NSX support<\/a>, Cisco ACI announcement<\/a> and more. We have always gotten great feedback on our shows with hosts Greg and Ethan, and find their audience to be one of the most savvy and technical groups out there.<\/p>\n

Quite coincidently, we were surprised that Drew Conry-Murray from the Packet Pushers team also published a blog last week titled, \u201cIntent-based Marketing Sucks<\/a>\u201d. Since many in the industry consider us one of the leaders in intent-based networking, we thought it was an odd prelude to our upcoming podcast release.<\/p>\n

In reality, I pretty strongly agree with Drew, though, and I think we had a good chuckle about it over email. The two main points we agree on are that: 1) \u201cintent based networking\u201d has become one of those vaguely defined panaceas that every remotely-related vendor tries to tie into, and 2) Forward Networks actually does a really good job of not leading with \u201cintent washing\u201d, as so many people see it. Drew actually compliments us on our straight-forward, technical and value-based presentations.<\/p>\n

To the point of Drew\u2019s blog, \u201cit appears that if you expose APIs and can auto-configure a network device, you are \u2018Intent-Based\u2019\u201d. There are SD-WAN vendors, for example, pitching whatever link optimization feature they have as intent-based networking. That\u2019s not really keeping with the full vision of how the industry defined \u201cintent based networking\u201d. We\u2019ve seen the same thing in the past with \u201cSDN washing\u201d, \u201ccloud washing\u201d, etc.<\/p>\n

Drew notes that customers don\u2019t benefit from this kind of confusion and mislabeling. Instead, he says that customers want clarity and not jargon. Which is absolutely the approach that Forward Networks has taken while I\u2019ve been doing product marketing. We rarely lead with \u201cintent based networking\u201d to define or position ourselves, precisely because it is still such an ill-defined technology. We educate customers first on what our product really does, and not refer solely to buzzwords.<\/p>\n

For the most recent example, we presented at Tech Field Day in Barcelona on January 30 to a very seasoned panel of leading European networking bloggers and technologists, and they unanimously said that we were the best presentation of the week (via comments like this<\/a>, this<\/a> and this<\/a>)! From clearly articulating how our product solves real problems, demonstrating use cases, and an in-depth walk-through of product features. No jargon, no buzzwords, no hype, no confusion. If you haven\u2019t seen it, check it out here:<\/p>\n