Given the potential size of the consumer market compared to the enterprise market, smart networking vendors will seek to capitalize on these consumer trends. The consumer market needs networking gear where decisions such as permissions and class of service are set at the very edge of the network. The fabric of this network also has to be blindingly fast, with just enough smarts to honor the traffic shaping and policy decisions made by the edge devices.
There's no doubt that this sort of network will evolve. The question is, which enterprise gear providers are going to take advantage of it? Clearly, Cisco Systems is in a good position because it makes both edge gear and blindingly fast, but fairly stupid core devices. Alcatel could also become a force to reckon with, as it parleys its carrier networking experience into enterprise gear.
The third winner may be HP, which is now number two in the Ethernet switching market, behind Cisco. In about six months, expect to see an announcement from HP of just such a fast, dumb switch made for the enterprise. HP has already licensed technology from Riverstone Networks, which makes carrier-class 10GigE gear. So while this current round of 10GigE announcements is interesting, it's my guess that the truly groundbreaking announcements will come later this year.
Editor-in-Chief Art Wittmann can be reached at [email protected].
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