Bosco -- Of course, my belief that Cisco will dominate the L3 switching market is an opinion. I guess we'll see.
I can't get too worried about the Granite vs. Rapid City acquisition thing. There simply is not a big market yet for L3/Gigabit switching. The fact that Bay shipped first really doesn't mean much, especially when the majority of Fortune 500 companies out there aren't ready to go L3 switching/Gigabit en masse. Technology must be proven and a bit more mature before they find their way into production networks. In the meantime, Bay's marketing consists of things like: "Bay captures 19% of a $1.5 million market."
I've got to say, in my opinion, that the stock prospects for a company that lies in the direct sights of Cisco are not very good -- except for an aquisition, which looks more and more likley by the day. Bay is losing market share to Cisco in all key, significant markets. Bay's products may even be better in certain cases, but the company doesn't have the management, customer service and support, sales force, deep pockets, R&D spending, etc. to go head-to-head with Cisco. Plus, Bay has way too much revenue still tied up in shared media hubs, which is a rapidly shrinking market. No great short, mid or long term growth prospects given these dynamics (Cisco + shared media).
Of course, my opinion. |
