Stockman -- Yeah, Cisco is really having a lot of nightmares lately. So, I didn't FORGET to list fixed/modular/ports, etc., because I thought the point was made. But, if you insist ..
Overall Switched ENet ports shipped last quarter:
Bay: 908,000 (300,000 drop from last quarter)
Cisco: 2,738,000
(By the way, revenue here increased 20% quarter over quarter when the overall switching market flattened due to pricing. Now THAT's out-executing the competition!)
Modular:
Bay: $25 million on 108,000 ports shipped
Cisco: $562 million on 1,600,000 ports shipped
Fixed (Now THIS is where the commodity products are ...)
Bay: $65 million on 800,000 ports shipped
Cisco: $99 million on 1,138,000 ports shipped
So now that I broke it out, I fail to see how this changes my point one bit.
re: 75XX/85XX: I thought you understood a little bit about the networking industry! While L3 switches do a lot of the same things as traditional routers, there are key (traditional) router software services that are deemed critical to production networks. The difference is that 75XXs won't be positioned as much in the backbone, but at the WAN edge. Talk to any IT manager at a Fortune 500-type company and ask if they have plans to swap out all of their 75XXs, or BCNs, etc. any time soon and replace them all with L3 switches. You will probably be quite surprised. No wonder Bay's management crows so much about its Accelar "penetration" in such a small market .. all the other big battles are already lost.
Stockman, the router market is still growing in the single digits. Companies and ISPs seem to still be buying these things by the boatloads. Plus, do all of the 4000s, 3500s, 2000s, etc just go away? The routing market may not be growing like it used to, but it's still BIG BUSINESS, and it will be for some time. You'll be disappointed if you think (hope) otherwise.
Also, if you think the 85XX is going to sink into 5000 sales ... well, I hope you realize how wrong that one is. There are far more large organizations out there who are still considering moving from shared to switched environments, and are considering plugging a few switches into their router backbones.
If you subscribe to the "hot box" marketing mentality generated by the Bay's and 3Com's, you would think that every new technology innovation get deployed wholesale in a matter of months, and out goes the existing equipment. The market doesn't work that way. Cisco seems to understand this. Bay and other wish it wasn't so.
Last point -- Before posting more anti-Cisco thoughts/articles, etc. re: proprietary protocols and lock-ins, think a second about how Bay has treated their customers in the switching arena. 35000, System 5000, Centillion, Accelar ... all platforms at one time were the "platform of choice", as prescribed by Bay. Unfortunately, none have anything to do with the other. Talk about severe lack of investment protection! |
