Supercomm Desperation
Thread,
Here's the latest from Loring Wirbel on the comings and goings at Supercomm in Atlanta.
eetimes.com
Supercomm desperation
By Loring Wirbel
EE Times
(06/11/01, 12:08 p.m. EST)
Pundits have pointed out the apparent discrepancy between the continued gloom and doom in the network equipment supplier market, and the fact that the Supercomm show that opened on June 4 was slated to be of record size. The mystery was easy to solve for those arriving in Atlanta last week. All OEMs and component suppliers, large and small, felt they had to be there to make last-ditch, valiant efforts to pitch their wares to service providers, yet the high numbers on the hardware side-wooing a declining base of carriers-made the whole affair feel like an open mixer dance where the male-to-female ratio is 10:1.
We all were expecting a make-or-break attitude among the last-mile access contenders, particularly in DSL access multiplexers. Yes, there is a burgeoning new hope for the remote-terminal baby-DSLAM market. But the central-office DSLAM world has been dominated in such an absolute sense by Alcatel that a series of DSLAM startups and old-timers are in a heap of trouble. Keep your eyes open at the National Cable Television Association show-the cable modem market has been so flat in recent months, the outlook for cable modem termination system equipment won't look much better.
It also was easy to predict the overabundance of equipment players in metropolitan optical-access/transport hybrid systems. Yes, the multiplicity of Layer 2 methodologies, including Gigabit Ethernet in the WAN, resilient packet rings and next-generation Sonet, allowed a hundred flowers to bloom in late 2000. But the dwindling number of facility-owning and wholesaling optical metro carriers caused many of those flowers to look wilted in the Atlanta sun. Some of the favored newcomers of 1999-2000 seemed hungry-hell, half-starved-at Supercomm.
Even some new categories of equipment developed for specific needs were bound to get hurt as the number of service providers fell. Secure VPN and IPsec access platforms? Interesting, but most enterprises look to the major carriers. Service switching? A winner long term, but tough to implement without new platforms with several ASICs and high ASPs.
Some North American companies are looking to Europe or Asia for salvation, but that's not a foolproof strategy.
There are hard times ahead across the pond. In fact, this may be how we look at Supercomm in general. The startups had their final fling with last year's venture money, and we waited until August, when the other shoe dropped, for scores more companies to go bankrupt and the real carrier crisis to hit the OEMs.
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Still plenty of hard times ahead, looks like.....
-Ray |
