Alcatel-Lucent has engineered a network processor capable of handling 400 Gbps. This is about 2x than any version made by Cisco. They join the top of the cadre in the domains of Huawei, Juniper and Ericsson.
Analysts think that this will give ALU a very huge advantage in the market, as well as worsening the stock position of Cisco whose business model has already being attacked by the like of Huawei as the latter raked up contracts in the developing world with its affordable products.
Cisco has lost more than 12 % of its market share in the segment router market within the last five years. EETImes gives the breakdown as follows.
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Cisco owns the edge and core router markets, but its share has been slipping in recent years. Cisco commanded 42 percent of the $5.9 billion edge router market last year, down from 57 percent in 2006, according to Dell’Oro. It had a 58 percent share of the $2.7 billion core router market last year, with Juniper in second place at 30 percent.
Alca-Lu and Juniper were nearly tied for second place in edge routers last year at 22 and 20 percent respectively. Alca-Lu does not currently have a core router offering, but is expected to design one around the new FP3 chip. Juniper announced its latest router chip in late 2009.
Yes, the challenge remains for Alcatel-Lucent as this competition is no more between it and Cisco. Huawei which is moving fast with telecom companies in Africa is the greatest threat to most of these old players.