Ascend Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASND) a leader in wide area
networking (WAN) and Intelligent Network (IN) solutions for service
providers and users of the next-generation public network, today
announced that figures from analyst groups Cahners In-Stat, Dataquest
and Dell'Oro, show its MAX and MAX TNT products with a commanding lead
in the Access Concentrator and Remote Access Concentrator (RAC)
markets.
According to In-Stat's Q3 1998 Dial Access Market Analysis
Report, Ascend led the market with a commanding 46.7 percent market
share in RAC revenue to service providers for the quarter -- more than
one and a half times the nearest competitor in the market segment.
Ascend also led worldwide access concentrator manufacturer sales in
the third quarter of 1998 with 32.9 percent market share, boosting its
year-to-date market share lead to 31.2 percent in the category.
"Ascend has taken advantage of the growth in the access
concentrator segment and aggressively pulled away from the pack," said
Jeremy Duke, director of Cahners In-Stat Networking Group. "In
addition to Ascend's gains, their main competitors have lost market
share, giving Ascend a clear lead in the market."
Dataquest's Third Quarter 1998 Market Share for Remote Access
Concentrators and Remote Access Servers places Ascend in the top
position with 30.8 percent market share in factory revenue of remote
access concentrators for the third quarter of 1998. Ascend was also
the leader in shipments of access concentrator ports with 38.6 percent
market share in the third quarter. In both categories, Ascend showed
the largest quarter-to-quarter growth.
"Ascend had a very strong quarter with a quarterly revenue
increase of more than 31 percent over last quarter," said Tim
McElgunn, remote access equipment analyst for Dataquest. "Strong sales
in the service provider market and high port densities helped push
them into the lead."
In addition to the figures from In-Stat and Dataquest, the
Dell'Oro Group puts Ascend in the number one position in both ports
and revenue. Ascend garnered a commanding 46.4 percent share of the
service provider RAC revenue market for the third quarter of 1998. It
also was the leader in Dell'Oro's Q3 total RAC market share figures
which encompass both the service provider and enterprise market - with
33.2 percent (a 4.7 percent gain over Q2). Ascend led in RAC Ports as
well, with 34.2 percent.
"The figures from these market share reports underscore our
commitment to providing complete access solutions to our customers,
particularly those in the service provider segment," said Kurt Bauer,
vice president, Access Switching Division, Ascend Communications.
"Ascend's WAN access solutions enable our customers to stay ahead of
their competition with powerful service offerings and the ability to
command exponential network growth. Our continued success and market
leadership clearly demonstrate the value our solutions offer in
meeting the needs of the growing market."
Access concentrators continue to grow as a percentage of overall
sales, representing 86 percent of total dial access revenues in Q3,
according to In-Stat's report. In-Stat cites two primary forces as
driving the access concentrator market: large organizations that are
continuing to build-out enterprise-wide dial access for their
employees, customers and partners; and service providers continuing to
build out their infrastructures to meet the dial access demand for
Internet services.
Ascend's leadership in the remote access market is centered on
the MAX families of WAN access switching products, offering the
broadest range of access solutions in the industry. Ascend MAX WAN
access switch product line includes powerful remote access
concentrators that help enterprises and network service providers
build remote networks of any size, with virtually any combination of
analog and digital carrier services. The MAX TNT is a carrier-class
WAN access switch that gives large corporations and network service
providers a high-capacity, multiservice platform for building
high-density networks.
The MAX family is supported by the Ascend True Access Operating
System (TAOS), the first comprehensive software architecture for WAN
access environments; enabled by NavisAccess, the next-generation tool
for managing dial access and Frame Relay concentration environments;
and implemented by Ascend Global Integration Services (GIS), a newly
created business unit consisting of customer technical support and
education, logistics, and professional services. Ascend's combined
capabilities enable the company to create advanced access solutions
like MultiVPN, MultiVoice and Carrier Signaling, as well as last mile
solutions, such as network wholesaling, Frame Relay concentration and
MultiDSL.
Other recent reports further underscore the market leadership of
the Ascend MAX and MAX TNT families of remote access products. Ascend
is the recognized leader for the first half of 1998 in the following
markets: total worldwide remote access server (RAS) concentrator
revenue and ports shipped (International Data Corp.); RAS concentrator
end user revenue, manufacturer revenue and port shipments (In-Stat);
total remote access concentration, service provider remote access
concentration, and asynchronous port shipments (Dell'Oro Group); and
access concentrator factory revenue (Dataquest). In addition, Ascend
has been recognized as the market leader in RAC revenue for all of
1998, according to Frost & Sullivan. |
