This came into my inbox Thursday around noontime ET (sadly, past deadline), from corporate spokesman John Earnhardt:

“As we mentioned during our last quarterly conference call, we have experienced longer lead times on several of our products. This was the result of increased demand driven by the improvement in our overall markets. And, similar to what is happening in the entire industry we are seeing some product lead time extensions stemming from supplier constraints. We continue to build upon our strong relationships with our suppliers to proactively manage our supply chain and minimize any potential impact to our customers and partners.”

The statement is pretty much what Cisco wrote, as John mentions, in their Section 1A of their 4Q09 report about risk factors for investors.

As if the whole situation wasn’t causing networking pros enough headaches, reps form Network Hardware Resale tell us that low supply is pushing prices up as well. Ouch.

Let’s see of a show of (virtual) hands. Have you had any nasty backorders on networking gear — Cisco or otherwise? What kind of prices are you seeing?