Skip Links

Network World

Brad Reese

Revealed: Surprises in the 4Q08 Ethernet switch market

By Brad Reese on Wed, 02/25/09 - 9:01pm.

This week data networking and telecom research firm - Infonetics, released a report on the 4Q08 Ethernet and Application Switch market, revealing a few surprises.

Matthias MachowinskiAccording to Matthias Machowinski - Infonetics Directing Analyst for Enterprise Voice & Data:

"The North American Ethernet switch market was actually up both sequentially and year-over-year (up 2.6% in 2008 over 2007, and up 1.4% quarter-over-quarter in 4Q08), somewhat surprising given that this region is generally blamed for the current worldwide economic woes."

How so? Well according to Machowinski:

"Manufacturers were able to shift the sales mix to higher priced products. If this trend sustains, it should help with profit margins in what is expected to be tough year ahead."

The Infonetics report highlighted two more bright spots in the Ethernet switch market:

1. Worldwide revenue for 10G fixed Ethernet switches doubled in 2008.
2. The number of 1G fixed PoE (power over Ethernet) ports sold jumped 56.4% in 2008.

Web-managed Ethernet Switch Ports Shipped in 2008 (Worldwide)Continuing with the good news, the worldwide Ethernet switch market grew 5% to $18.2 billion in 2008 from 2007, however the winners in 4Q08 were Adtran and Alcatel-Lucent, both posting strong revenue increases, and Nortel and Extreme, both showing good performance given the difficult economic climate.

Additionally, the report revealed that in the newly tracked web-managed Ethernet switch segment, 3Com/H3C is the worldwide market share leader, followed by NETGEAR and ProCurve.

Reporting on the negative side:

Starting strong in early 2008 but decelerating in the latter half, the worldwide Ethernet switch market is down 2% 4Q07 to 4Q08 and down 7% 3Q08 to 4Q08 (Cisco accounted for much of the overall worldwide Ethernet switch market decrease in 4Q08, with revenue down 5.7%). The application switch market dropped 4% to $272 million in 4Q08, a sign of more to come for this market due to the high exposure to financial services.

Finally the report concludes that most application switch vendors had a down quarter, however there were two notable exceptions: Citrix and Radware.


What's your take on the surprises revealed in the Infonetics 4Q08 Ethernet and Application Switch report?

Brad Reese
BradReese.Com Cisco Refurbished
Contact: Brad Reese
Twitter: http://twitter.com/BradReese
Call Toll Free 866-864-0506 or International 850-364-4115
Brad's Favorite Story Picks

  1. New CCIE count: Beginning roots of a new tech boom?
  2. Cisco stock repurchases ... what's the point?
  3. Cisco CEO joins finance committee of Ex-eBay CEO running for Governor of California
  4. Do Chicagoans Sen. Roland 'Tombstone' Burris and Nortel CEO Mike Zarifovski have credibility problems?
  5. Cisco margins take haircut from reseller rebates!
  6. Is Cisco short of cash in the U.S.?
  7. Mr. Warmth, comedian Don Rickles: Are Cisco employees hockey pucks?
  8. No payments for Cisco UC deployments, up to $10M, Cisco customer receives 3 month deferral
  9. Did Borat help Cisco bring its Mobile WiMAX technology to make benefit for glorious nation of Kazakhstan?
  10. Cisco to offer smartphone of its own, slated for mid 2010?
  11. View Brad Reese on Cisco Story Archives

Cisco Repair

Refurbished Cisco

Cisco Power Supplies

New Cisco Equipment

3 who?

0

>In the newly tracked web-managed Ethernet switch segment, 3Com/H3C is the worldwide market share leader, followed by NETGEAR and ProCurve

Huh??? Where? In Timbuktu?

3Com leading anything after they dumped enterprise years ago? We don't see 3Com ever. Last customer in my area just finished replacing some 600+ 3Com switches.

I wouldn't pay good money to buy any report that lists any of these guys as the top of web-manged whatever.

Betting against Buster Douglas?

0

42 to 1 underdog Buster Douglas knocks out undefeated champion Mike Tyson

You appear to be betting against 42 to 1 underdog Buster Douglas!

Hopefully, you are well aware of the negative consequences of such hubris.

Sincerely,

Brad Reese
BradReese.Com Cisco Refurbished

Report on Ethernet Switch Market

0

Did I miss something? The first half of this article on the new report says that the Ethernet switch market was up in 4Q2008, the second half of the article says it was down. Huh?

To clarify your confusion

0

Hi Clif,

To clarify your confusion on the first half of this article:

The North American Ethernet switch market was actually up both sequentially and year-over-year (up 2.6% in 2008 over 2007, and up 1.4% quarter-over-quarter in 4Q08).

To clarify your confusion on the second half of this article:

Starting strong in early 2008 but decelerating in the latter half, the worldwide Ethernet switch market is down 2% 4Q07 to 4Q08 and down 7% 3Q08 to 4Q08 (Cisco accounted for much of the overall worldwide Ethernet switch market decrease in 4Q08, with revenue down 5.7%).

The first half is talking only about the North American market while the second half is talking about the worldwide market.

Keep in mind that the declines in the worldwide market were in the latter part of the year, 4th quarter. Not for the entire year itself which grew 5%.

Thank you for bringing this confusion to my attention and please accept my apology for not defining the two markets.

Hopefully, this has clarified the confusion.

Sincerely,

Brad Reese
BradReese.Com Cisco Refurbished

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • You can use BBCode tags in the text.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <p> <strong> <i> <br /> <br> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <blockquote>

More information about formatting options

CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Welcome, visitor. Register Log in
About Brad Reese on Cisco

Brad Reese cofounded BradReese.Com Cisco Refurbished, which enables affordable Cisco networks globally by assuring customer satisfaction with guaranteed one year warranties on both Cisco Repair as well as Refurbished Cisco.

Don't be shy, contact Brad Reese online or call him Toll Free:

866-864-0506

International callers may wish to call Brad by dialing:

850-364-4115

Archives
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
Categories
Allan Sulkin - founder and president of enterprise communications systems and applications consultancy - TEQConsult Group
Careers
Chambers and his Board of Dirctors urged Cisco shareholders to vote NO
China networking marketplace
Christian Brothers Investment Services notice
Cisco
Cisco TelePresence
Cisco TelePresence revenue
Cisco Unified Communications Support for Microsoft Windows 7
Cisco engineer - Kevin Murphy
Cisco has now become the target of unflattering employee reviews
Cisco is warning Unified Communications customers about NOT successfully offering support for Microsoft Windows 7
Cisco is well known as being one of the best companies to work for
Cisco stock chart for the last 10 years
Cisco will have no liability for any delay in delivery
Cisco's 1st Quarter Other Product Revenue By Fiscal Year
Cisco's F1Q10 earnings call
Cisco's Form 10-Q
Cisco's new Stock Incentive Plan as amended and restated
Cisco's upcoming annual stockholder's meeting
Daniel Berg - Skype's CTO
Data Center
Dave Donatelli - HP executive vice president and general manager of enterprise servers and networking
FNF
Father of SIP - Jonathan Rosenberg
Financial windfall for Cisco shareholders
Flexible NetFlow
Flip video camcorder
Flip video camcorder revenue
Gilbert Public School's $3.5 million network upgrade to HP
Gilbert Public Schools Board President - Thad Stump
Gilbert Public Schools assistant superintendent - Barb VeNard
Glassdoor.com is financially backed by 2 of the leading Silicon Valley venture capital firms - Benchmark Capital and Sutter Hill Ventures
HP also bid on the project
HP purchasing 3Com
HP's Converged Infrastructure strategy
HP's acquisition of 3Com
John Chambers has had some good paydays as the CEO of Cisco
LANs / WANs
Microsoft
NBAD
NetFlow
NetFlow add-ons
Network Behavior Anomaly Detection
Network Management
Popular online career and workplace community - Glassdoor.com
ProCurve ONE alliance
Proposal submitted by Christian Brothers Investment Services
Proxy resolution during Cisco's annual meeting
Rosenberg is now Skype's Chief Technology Strategist
SMB
Say on executive pay
Security
Skills and abilities of Skype CTO Daniel Berg
Skype announced Roseberg jumped ship from Cisco
Skype's Chief Technology Strategist - responsible for Skype's overall architecture and technology strategy
So how does one verify that Glassdoor's information is really from Cisco employees?
Software
Superintendent Dave Allison
TelePresence revenue
VoIP / Convergence
When Cisco used its common stock to buy Linksys and Pure Digital
Who's right about Cisco's work environment - Fortune or Glassdoor?
Windows 7
Windows 7 just not worth an all-out urgent effort by Cisco to support
Wireless / Mobile
On The Web
Twitter