5/4/98 IBD article. Ascend Attacks The Growing Market For Private Networks
Date: 5/4/98
Author: Michele Hostetler
Ascend Communications Inc. is staking its
claim Monday in the potential gold mine of
virtual private networks.
The networking company is unveiling a host
of products that lets companies ship private
data over the public Internet. It plans to start
selling the products this summer.
In making its move, Ascend is taking on the
biggest makers of networking gear: Cisco
Systems Inc., Bay Networks Inc. and 3Com
Corp. Shiva Corp. is another rival in the
VPN market.
''VPNs today present a huge opportunity,''
said Kurt Bauer, Ascend's vice president of
access product management.
Companies use VPNs to ship data and tie
together far-flung offices. Internet service
providers and telecommunications companies
also are VPN buyers, using the technology to
create and manage wide-area networks for
their corporate customers.
The Alameda, Calif.-based company calls its
products MultiVPN. In the crowding VPN
field, the products will help Ascend ''get back
in the game'' against the likes of Cisco and
Bay, says Michael Howard. He's chief
executive of market researcher Infonetics
Research Inc. in San Jose, Calif.
''We are extremely well positioned against
Cisco . . . and Bay,'' Ascend's Bauer said.
''We defer to no one.''
VPNs are part of the
remote-access-equipment market. The VPN
segment is still so small that market
researchers don't track it separately.
Worldwide sales of remote-access equipment
should reach $4.2 billion this year, up from
$3.2 billion last year, says International Data
Corp., a market researcher in Framingham,
Mass.
Ascend also will reveal its plans to put VPN
technology into all of its products. And it will
make sure that VPN technology works with
the asynchronous transfer mode and frame
relay technologies it got from its purchase of
Cascade Communications Corp. last year.
Like the Internet, ATM and frame relay are
ways to send data over wide areas.
''This is the first time that Ascend and
Cascade are able to plug in together,'' Bauer
said. ''Everyone else has focused just on the
Internet with VPN. No one has said it's also
frame relay and ATM.''
Ascend already is one of the largest sellers of
switches and other networking products to
ISPs and telecom companies. Now, these
customers will have another reason to buy
Ascend gear, Howard says.
MultiVPN includes Ascend's year-old IP
(Internet Protocol) Navigator software and
uses it to its full capabilities for the first time,
Howard says.
IP Navigator helps different Ascend
equipment work together. That's another key
aspect to Ascend's VPN push.
''I think Ascend has, to date, spelled out a
more coherent strategy than its competitors,''
said IDC analyst Rick Villars. ''I think of all
the vendors, they're the ones trying to tell a
single story.''
The major VPN challenge for networking
companies is to get products to work with
other products, he says.
''Ascend wants its customers to have only
Ascend products, but to keep growing it has
to get into a heterogeneous environment,''
Villars said.
One of Ascend's new products is Navis
Customer Network Management. The
software lets ISPs view and control their
VPN from a computer.
And Navis Service Level Agreement is
software that helps track network
performance.
Other products include Virtual Private
Remote Networking software. It helps
customers create VPNs using different types
of systems.
Virtual Private Trunking helps guarantee
bandwidth during heavy network traffic.
Virtual IP Routing helps companies do such
things as keep their internal electronic-mail
addresses even when relaying messages over
the Internet.
(C) Copyright 1998 Investors Business Daily,
Inc.
Metadata: ASND CSCO BAY COMS SHVA I/3574
E/IBD E/SN1 E/TECH |
