* New network requirements causing chassis resurgence
Dell’Oro Group last week forecast a healthy rise in IP phone shipments, plus a surprise turnaround for a LAN switch architecture that had fallen out of favor.
The research firm predicted that revenue from sales of IP phones would double in five years. By 2012, Dell’Oro said, it will be a $6 billion market, with shipments growing 25% a year over that period. IP lines are forecast to grow from less than 20% of total lines installed last year to more than 50% in 2012.
IP desk phones will get more features and functionality at a lower cost. In store are larger color displays, touch screens, and video capabilities.
Dell’Oro says not to worry – the LAN switch infrastructure to support the VoIP rollouts will be there as well. I would think most companies’ infrastructure is certainly going to have to become more robust to support all of those video calls.
Figuring into that build-out is the chassis-based LAN switch, which apparently is experiencing a bit of a resurgence, Dell’Oro said. Chassis-based devices had been in decline for years, and a year ago the research firm said stackable-switch revenue was stable, but the chassis-based models dragged down the overall Ethernet switch market.
But that dark time seems to be behind us. Shipments of modular switches are expected to stabilize in the first half of this year and start to climb again in the second half.
Why the turnaround? Dell’Oro says that bandwidth requirements in data centers are rising, pushing for higher backplane speeds. Support for 10 Gigabit Ethernet is needed today for aggregation and will be needed in the future for direct server connections. Vendors will be shipping products that meet these requirements – in chassis form.
