Not only blind, but nowhere near as knowledgable as they think they are, and they are misleading as well. Consider the following excerpts:
<<Routers are more difficult to produce than switches and very few companies have router capacity. Cisco is the clear leader in routers with Ascend following well behind.>>
Routers are the older technology, switches are the new. More money will be made in switches than routers going forward. Who cares that CSCO is the leader in a low-growth router market?
ASND is primarily a core switching (CSCC) and RAS/RAC company (the old ASND). Routers are a very small percentage of ASND's business and most of those they do sell are to Telcos and ISPs, whereas CSCO sells routers primarily to enterprises, where the demand for wire speed is not critical. To say the ASND is a distant competitor in routers to CSCO without providing more perspective is very misleading.
<<In terms of growth, switches - high, medium, and low-end - offer significant potential for this group, with low-end switches offering the best growth potential. Bay holds the lion's share of sales in low-end switches with about a 40% market share. 3Com and Cisco have recently come into this market and pricing has become vicious.>>
This seems to only consider the enterprise switch market, and so is also misleading, IMO. It makes it look like ASND has no significant position in switches, which of course is erroneous.
<<When considering the remote access market, it is a very close race between Ascend, 3Com, and Cisco. Ascend and 3Com lost share in 1997 while Cisco went from nothing to mid-teens in market share, and potentially, could emerge as the leader in absolute dollars for the quarter. Newbridge Networks, Ascend, Cisco, and Northern Telecom are all fairly close.>>
ASND decline in RAS in Q3 and Q4 has a specific reason behind it. Issues with 56K and TNT software bugs, both now resolved. They don't mention this and make it look like ASND is in decline, whereas they should show a rebound later in 1998.
The WAN switch statement is ridiculous. ASND and I think NT are the only ones with OC-48 speed. CSCO is a year behind here. NN is mostly OC-3 and some OC-12, also behind. ASND's CBX-500 and GX-550 are looking like they are "killer products" that will grab most of the high speed WAN switch market in 1998 and 1999. ASND is a clear leader here.
<<Northern Telecom, announced just yesterday that it had acquired
Aptis Communications which will put them in competition with Bay, 3Com, Shiva, and others in the remote access space.>>
Ridiculous to mention BAY and Shiva and not mention ASND.
<< Intel, for example, is making NIC cards and low-end switches. Its value-added is in networking switches where Intel brings the formidable ASIC Design capability.>>
Amazingly, it is MRVC's ASIC design capability and ASICs too that are confirmed to be in INTC's latest switches, yet these "experts" have no inkling of this.
And not one word on MRVC. Obviously MRVC has a ways to go on visibility, but these "experts" are pitiful. I don't consider myself expert either - just a knowledgeable investor with a networking and DP background. |
