Worldwide sales of LAN switches dipped slightly during the second quarter of 2004, but the International Data Corporation (IDC) says good growth will resume.
According to IDC, the worldwide market for LAN switches declined 2% in the second three months of this year, but is up 23% year-over-year. The slight decline follows 13% growth in the first quarter of 2004.
IDC says port shipments fell 1% sequentially but rose 34% over the second quarter of 2003.
"Cisco remains the market leader by a long margin. HP is in second place, with Nortel, 3Com, Extreme and Foundry following at a close distance," says IDC.
The "battle for second place" is proving to be long and drawn out, says the research company. Over the past two years, no vendor has been able to rise above the fray and maintain a second place spot in the market with over 6% share.
"HP and 3Com have come closest, with Nortel at their heels. Extreme and Foundry are tantalisingly close, each obtaining 3% market share, but this landmark continues to defy them. With the market mature, vendors are diving deeper into particular markets and segments, be they technical, such as security; vertical, such as government or financial services; or demographic, like small-medium business," says IDC.
"Despite the dip this quarter, we believe that 2004 will be a growth year for LAN switching, currently forecasted around 3%," says Max Flisi, research analyst in IDC`s Enterprise Networks programme. "Gigabit is certainly one of the main drivers, having already surpassed fast Ethernet in revenue terms in the first quarter of this year. We expect this trend to continue as gigabit to the desktop and in data centres becomes more prevalent."
He says prices are gradually coming down. "In light of that, we see 10Gb Ethernet ports, which are commonly used to aggregate gigabit connections, also increasing at an elegant pace."
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