Tom --
Thanks for the kind words. I agree Ascend's Cascade products are excellent. So, too, are NN's MainStreet express 170 products.
Research findings differ as to who has the ATM WAN sector "sewn up." I frankly don't think anyone can claim total dominance and if they do, they should take a page out of Andy Grove's book and tape it to their mirror.
However, for the record, from IDC and DataQuest:
<<<International Data Corporation (IDC) reports that Newbridge
continued to lead the market in ATM Edge/Enterprise Switch
revenues worldwide with 27.5 percent market share, a one
percent gain over 1996. The report also found Newbridge
increased market share for frame relay and ATM WAN switch
revenues with 21.1 percent market share compared to 19
percent a year ago. The findings are contained in the
recently published IDC report: ATM and Frame Relay Switching
Market Review and Forecast, 1997-2002.
According to the IDC report, "Newbridge Networks continued
its market leadership with a share of 27.5 percent on the
strength of its MainStreetXpress™ 36150 Access Switch and
MainStreetXpress 36170 Multiservices Switch products, the
vast majority of which are shipped to carrier customers."
IDC also noted: "In the long term, carriers are looking to
introduce ATM technology into their voice networks to take
advantage of its efficient use of bandwidth and
multi-service capability."
IDC forecasts that the ATM Edge/Enterprise segment of the
market will grow from $1.44 billion in 1997 to $4.91 billion
in 2002.
The Newbridge® leadership position in the ATM marketplace is
further reinforced by Dataquest's 1998 North American WAN
Market Share and Forecast report. Dataquest identified
Newbridge as the leader in revenue and shipments of ATM
backbone switches in North America with 34.4 percent market
share, a growth of 6.6 percent over 1996 figures. According
to the report, "Dataquest predicts healthy growth in the ATM
WAN backbone market over the next five years, growing from
$855 million in 1997 to $2.6 billion in 2002, representing a
compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 23 percent."
More than 280 service providers worldwide use the
MainStreetXpress 36170 Multiservices Switch, the industry's
only true multi-service platform. The MainStreetXpress
36170 Switch's broad range of interfaces and service
offerings – including native cell relay, frame relay,
advanced private line, LAN internetworking, Internet
Protocol (IP), xDSL and broadband wireless – enables
companies to take advantage of the cost and performance
benefits provided by a powerful multi-service, multi-access
platform. The MainStreetXpress 36170 Multiservices Switch
offers interfaces ranging from sub-T1 speeds to OC12,
growing to OC48, and features such as ATM Forum-complaint
Inverse Multiplexing over ATM (IMA) and switched virtual
circuits (SVCs). It scales from 800 Mbit/s to more than 50
Gbit/s in a fully redundant mode (100 Gbit/s switching
capacity), and more than 30,000 T1, frame-relay,
circuit-emulation or native cell relay ports per system. >>>>
For continued healthy debates ---
Pat |
