A very important point from Maverick's post earlier:
Below is an excerpt from his post:
<<It is indeed true that ASND is at least 6 mos ahead of competition. Cosidering that we are in the Internet dog time, 6 mos is enough for ASND to conquer the market, build a large installed base of WAN backbone edge/core ATM switch. In the NW biz, this is a huge advantage because customers must have a very good reason to switch vendors for too much money has already been invested in traininng, NW installation & mgmt & configuration, testing, qualifying, interoperability. We are talking about the total cost of ownership here instead of the initial cost of equipment purchase. >>
This was exactly the point I was going to post about tonight, after someone today mentioned that ASND had a 6-12 month lead with the GX-550 switch.
Maverick says it well, but I'll comment as well.
This is not JUST a 6-12 month lead, it's much more important than that because of the timing - it could mean a lifetime partnership with many new major customers.
This OC-48 capable switch comes just as major carriers are embarking on building out next-generation higher speed networks. With the recent WCOM-MCI deal and companies like Williams stepping up the competition, this has to be a high priority for many carriers.
Are they going to be willing to wait 6-12 months for a CSCO, FORE, NN product, when ASND has what they need now and other competitors are moving quickly? No. ASND is likely to win this market in a HUGE way over those 6-12 months.
Once won, other vendors will find it hard to replace ASND, because of the vendor loyalty/inertia issue I've mentioned many times. As they
build out further, they will do so with even MORE ASND products, as well.
ASND is about to pull off what CSCO did so well in the LAN space with their routers. To avoid inter-operability glitches and reduce complexity and support, you grow with more of your primary vendor's products - which are KNOWN to interoperate well with each other.
This will tend to boost ASND's RAS/RAC too, as that gives the same vendor products on both sides.
IMO, We are witnessing just the beginning of a tidal wave of contracts - I'll get to repost my song several more times this year <VBG> |
