Well, it depends on who you ask. Share numbers in optical vary wildly from vendor to vendor. As best as I can tell, Nortel will do between $4.5 and $5B in '99 (this includes merchant sales of opto-electronics components). Lucent will do between $4.2 and $4.7 (NOT including opto-electronics where it is much bigger than NT). I believe NT slipped past LU for world leadership this year on its strength in SONET - specifically its OC-192 products, where LU had no competitive answer until this most recent quarter. However, SONET is not everything - LU is the world-leader in DWDM systems (a hair ahead of NT) and a strong #2 in SDH (standard everywhere but North America) to Alcatel and gaining. In contrast, NT is not particularly strong in SDH.
My two cents on what this all means: NT and LU are each growing their optical busineses at 60%+, with a modest current advantage to NT based on their 9-12 month headstart in delivering OC-192 and the current higher growth rate of SONET vs. SDH. The two leaders are crushing the rest of the competition - Alcatel, Seimens, Ciena, NEC, Pirelli - and picking up market share hand over fist. The battle is close enough that LU could overtake NT if its OC-192 products (being deployed at AT&T, GLBX, BT, Telefonica) penetrate NT accounts (already Qwest is using LU as a second source) but it is all splitting hairs, as both will do spectacularly well in this sector. |
