LAN switching market: It’s about more than numbers
Some vendors in the LAN switching market posted press releases citing Dell’Oro Group 3QCY08 report data, which showed growth rates that are much higher than the industry rate, and also stated that they are leaders in the market. What they don’t tell you is that according to that same Dell’Oro data, Cisco continued to contribute to the vast majority of the market and generated 15 times the revenue of the next closest vendor for the third calendar quarter of 2008.
Cisco enjoys market share many times greater than the competition. But we seldom bring up the topic of our market share. We prefer to focus on how we partner with our customers to bring value to their businesses. How do we solve the problems that our customers encounter on a daily basis? How can we enable them to make faster and better decisions, and yet save money in the process? These are the questions that we ask.
Our collaboration tools ride on our switching platform to connect our customers’ employees together by voice or video, worldwide. Our wireless products also use the same switch infrastructure to enable mobile users, whether in universities, hospitals, or even oil rigs. Our security products work together to keep our customers’ information highly secure across their entire networks, not just the wired portions or the wireless portions.
So, next time you read a press release with some phenomenal growth numbers, just remember to ask yourself, “what’s the rest of the story?” and consider the following:
• Cisco has the most experienced network design and implementation staff in the world. This staff has designed thousands of networks of varying sizes and complexity worldwide. Cisco has incorporated this experience into product development, design, and delivery.
• Cisco develops leading-edge features and works proactively with peers and competitors to incorporate these innovations as standards.
• Cisco employees chair 20 IETF working groups in various networking areas, turning innovations into standards.
• More than 100 Cisco employees have written Internet drafts and RFCs.
• Cisco actively participates in virtually every group concerned with networking standards. This participation helps ensure that Cisco products remain current and compatible with standards. Cisco customers can deploy Cisco devices without concern over incompatibility.
• Cisco actively looks for new opportunities to grow and serve its customers through internal development, acquisition, or a combination, taking whichever approach it believes most effective.
• Cisco invested US$5.2 billion in product development (R&D) in fiscal year 2008.
• Cisco has more than 16,000 engineers working in labs worldwide and has been awarded more than 4,700 patents currently issued, with another 3,000 patent applications in process.
• Cisco has the largest networking support staff in the world with five Technical Assistance Centers (TACs) and more than 1,400 support engineers devoted to network support and problem resolution.
• Cisco offers multiple purchase alternatives such as direct purchase or leases when desired by customers.
As a vice president of marketing, I’m all for promoting achievements. But in doing so, we owe it to our constituents to present a truthful, contextual picture.
Posted by Marie Hattar at 08:26AM PST
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