From NWfusion -
Sponsored by:
This story appeared on Network World Fusion at
nwfusion.com
Large wins
Established relationships put big metro optical vendors first, study finds.
By Jim Duffy
The Edge, 12/19/01
A new report from Communications Industry Researchers on the metro optical market states that perhaps to no one's surprise, bigger is better.
Larger vendors will continue to be key players in the metro arena despite Wall Street's dire outlook on companies like Lucent and Nortel. Their substantial installed base of customers will not easily abandon them, and they are the first to be considered by incumbent local exchange carriers to fulfill demands for hardware, support, software functionality and volume shipments, the CIR study found.
Indeed, it's hard for regional Bell operating companies to ignore these companies even though their products may not be "best of breed." Decades of familiarity apparently breeds comfort, not contempt.
CIR said it interviewed executives and managers at over 60 companies, many of which were U.S. service providers, for this report.
Cisco is the vendor of choice in the next-generation SONET ADM market, the CIR study states. Cisco has sold 30,000 units of its ONS 15454 platform. The ONS 15454 recently completed OSMINE-compliance testing, which is a requirement among RBOCs, and is very competitive on a price-per-port basis, CIR states.
ONI Systems, meanwhile, is also generating significant interest from RBOC accounts, while Riverstone and LuxN also ranked high with carriers.
Those that did not include Tellabs, which lost the recent Verizon dense wave division multiplexing contract, according to CIR. Published reports have it that Lucent won this contract, but Lucent and Verizon would not confirm that.
Another is Fujitsu, which is having problems upgrading its installed OC-48 SONET base to OC-192 and next-generation capabilities, the CIR study found. As Verizon's incumbent metro SONET vendor, Fujitsu is vulnerable, some analysts say.
And Ciena, according to U.S. carriers interviewed by CIR, has yet to show that it can translate its success with the long-haul market into a strong metro presence.
Several smaller companies, meanwhile, have little chance of landing revenue-generating customers, according to CIR.
"They have been relegated instead to issuing press releases touting trials instead of actually shipping in any meaningful way to paying customers," CIR states in its report. "Another common tactic is referencing analyst quotes and/or their inflated market forecasts in the hopes of gaining credibility."
Hmmm, looks like CIR might be taking a shot at rival RHK with that one.
CIR also found that start-up firms that continue to push "all-optical" stories or promote "god box" products will find a less-than-lukewarm reception with service providers. And those that evangelize technologies and promote complexity are likely to fail as well.
All contents copyright 1995-2001 Network World, Inc. nwfusion.com |
