Strong sales of IP edge routers helped drive worldwide revenue of routers and switches 17 percent in Q4 09. However compelling the fourth quarter was, it could not prevent a 12 percent decline to $11.1 billion for the year.
Not surprisingly, the ongoing decline in sales of multiservice ATM switches–a segment that has continued to decline for multiple quarters–was a major contributor to the downward trend.
In 2009 there were various positional shifts amongst the router/switch vendors. Cisco and Juniper may have continued to lead the market, but their market share dropped from 69 percent in 2008 to 59 percent in 2009, while Alcatel-Lucent and Huawei increased share. At the same time, Tellabs’s focus on the wireless sector enabled it to beat out Ericsson and be listed on the top five switching/routing vendor segments for the first time.
“All six of the top router vendors posted strong double-digit revenue increases in the fourth quarter, and we expect modest growth in the router segment to continue in 2010 as carriers carry out fixed-mobile convergence strategies for their router networks,” said Michael Howard, co-founder and principal analyst for carrier and data center networks at Infonetics Research in a release.
On the regional front, Asia Pacific stood out with 19 percent year-over-year growth in IP edge and core router revenue. Infonetics attributes growth in Asia-Pacific to the Chinese government’s aggressive telecom stimulus and reorganization of its top service providers.
For more:
- see the release here
Let the core routing upgrade wars begin.
Entering the core routing networking ring is Juniper with a new capability that will enable customers to upgrade their existing T-Series routing gear to support 250 Gbps full duplex slot capacity. Leveraging a new in-house chipset design, Juniper says the upgrade will be able to deliver 4 Tbps of capacity in a half-rack system.
Available for purchase early next year, the proposed upgrade is likely the first attack on Cisco’s proposed MSC 120 core router that claims to support 120 Gbps per-slot. It would also surpass core networking platforms from both Alcatel-Lucent and Huawei–who have advertised support for 100 Gbps per-slot capacity.
For more:
- see the release here
- LightReading has this article
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by Brad on 12 November 2009
As I mentioned yesterday, HP didn’t get revolutionary, game-changing products and technologies from its $2.7-billion acquisition of 3Com, a company that has gone through more reinventions and market repositionings than Madonna.
In 3Com’s long and eventful history, it has gone from providing the original Ethernet adapters and hubs for enterprises and small businesses, to an [...]
Given all of the troubles Nortel has had over the past year–a tale that saw not only the recent resignation of the CEO meant to turn things around and an ongoing garage sale of its assets–it’s a bit ironic that carriers cite the company as their optical vendor of choice. According to Infonetics’ Optical Equipment Vendor Ratings: Global Service Provider Survey, which polled leaders at major carriers in EMEA, North America and Asia Pacific, Nortel still leads the 40/100 Gbps optical vendor market. Highlights of Nortel’s 100 Gbps drive include a recent trial with Australian incumbent operator Telstra.
Also making the list were ADVA, Alcatel-Lucent, Ciena, Cisco, Ericsson, Huawei, Infinera, Juniper, Mintera, NEC, Nokia Siemens Networks and StrataLight/Opnext. Service providers rated eight optical equipment vendors (Alcatel-Lucent, Ciena, Cisco, Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia Siemens, Nortel, and Tellabs) on eight main attributes: technology, product roadmap, security, management, price-to-performance ration, pricing, financial stability and service and support. One of the highlights of the survey was that carriers rated Huawei third for service and support, which are typically weak areas for the Chinese vendor.
For more:
- see the release here
by Brad on 13 October 2009
I looked at the Starent acquisition through a Cisco prism earlier today, trying to fathom what it might suggest about the networking giant’s subsequent moves to capture its fair share of the mobile-video opportunity.
What about Cisco’s (and Starent’s) competitors? How are they affected by the deal?
Eric Savitz at Barron’s Tech Trader Daily quotes [...]
by Brad on 30 September 2009
We can respectfully argue as to whether 3Com will rise again as a meaningful contender in enterprise networking. My view is that 3Com won’t make the cut, but I respect the opposing positions others have taken.
Some of 3Com’s advocates point to its cash holdings, its low debt, its standing as a low-cost enterprise-networking alternative [...]