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The name of the Web site says it all: “Overpromises and Under Delivers.”

Published proudly by Cisco, this site details how rival Juniper Networks makes grandiose announcements about new products and initiatives such as 100E on MX Series edge routers and the QFabric/Stratus data center vision. The site features a prominent clock ticking off the years, months, days, hours, minutes and seconds since Juniper made announcements without delivering.

By comparison, Cisco trumpets on the site how it delivered products and technology on timelines that they promised, such as the 100 Gigabit Ethernet on the ASR 9000 edge router. Cisco announced this product in June and will begin shipping in the fourth quarter of this year.

The site went live (or at least discovered) just after Cisco began a media push announcing a $75 million investment in new channel resources in the form of marketing, sales incentives, ordering and sales tracking tools and sales engineer support.

Cisco is in the midst of a corporate-wide restructuring to shave more than $1 billion in operating costs. Changes have included a restructuring of the channel program to three regions around the world and the consolidation of management. It’s also included the creation of partner-driven sales under Sage and new marketing organization under Amanda Jobbins.

>> CHECK OUT: Deconstructing Cisco

These moves are a direct response to Cisco’s sagging market performance against competitors, such as Juniper, Hewlett-Packard, Brocade and others. While Cisco embarked on consumer product strategies and emerging technologies, competitors began eating away at its core switching and routing networking business.

While many companies line up to compete with Cisco, none do so with the vigor of Juniper.

Cisco and Juniper are locked in a fierce battle for the future of the data center and networking. The two companies have competitive recruitment teams trying to lure talent to cross the road. In the channel, the most high profile defection from was Luanne Tierney, who left her post as head of Cisco channel marketing to take the same global role at Juniper.

Cisco competitors tell Channelnomics they’ve had it pretty easy over the past couple of years. While Cisco was chasing its grand design that included everything from set-top cable controllers to Flip personal video cameras, they were hammering away at enterprise and midmarket networking opportunities. Their biggest fear: A focused Cisco will make it hard to sustain the sales successes they’ve enjoyed.

“Overpromise and Underdeliver” is reflective of Cisco’s refocusing on competition. And it’s no surprise that Juniper is the target as no other competitor lines up as well in core networking. It shows that Cisco isn’t just paying attention to competitors like Juniper, but willing to engage head-on.

Frankly, this should be seen as a victory for Juniper and targets that may follow. The rule of thumb is never compare down because it degrades your position. By launching this hostile site, Cisco is comparing down to Juniper, acknowledging its threat.

Cisco calls out three undelivered products on the site. What’s interesting, though, is what Cisco isn’t calling out. In the two years since Juniper announced the QFabric/Stratus for data center switch, it has launched a number of core products and new versions of its Junos operating system and management platform. Most significantly, Juniper has embraced the open data center virtualization framework that competes directly with Cisco’s closed concepts. In short, three undelivered products do not make a failure.

And Cisco is hardly in a position to throw stones at Juniper over undelivered products. The joke in the security community is when will Cisco deliver the “self-defending network” it advertised on television in 2004. In the six years since Cisco embarked on network access control and autonomous threat response technologies, it has actually lost ground and focus in its security products.

When a vendor like Cisco embarks on a smear campaign such as “Overpromises and Under Delivers,” it’s trying to raise doubts in the minds of customers. This makes it harder for the partners of competitors to sell product because they first have to overcome the doubts and then sell the customer on the value proposition.

How much attention is this getting? It’s hard to gauge the impact of a site like “Overpromises and Under Delivers,” especially as it has only been up a couple of days and is extremely thin on content. However, Cisco is garnering attention from financial and business publications for its willingness to take on Juniper directly.

Solution providers of Juniper and other Cisco competitors should note this shift is Cisco posture. Cisco’s channel team promised they would get more aggressive in the field and take the fight to the streets. This Web site is the first salvo in the new war.

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Lawrence M. Walsh is CEO and president of The 2112 Group, a technology business advisory service that specializes in optimizing indirect channels and partner relationships. He’s also the executive director of the Channel Vanguard Council. He is the former publisher of Channel Insider and editor of VARBusiness Magazine. You can reach him at lmwalsh@the2112group.com.

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Larry Walsh:@lmwalsh2112| Channelnomics: @channelnomics