In the 1990s companies began to deploy enterprise-wide
applications for their entire employee base such as Enterprise Resource Planning
(ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and e-commerce. These new business
applications give employees, customers and partners a better window into the
necessary processes of the business and, thereby, improve efficiencies. To
support these applications as well as the development of voice and video over a
common network infrastructure such as the Internet, data equipment vendors are
rapidly evolving their products to include a broader base of faster and more
complex offerings.
At over 100 pages, NBI/Michael Sone Associates' Canadian
Data and Internet Equipment Market Report, 2001 Edition
describes the types of equipment required for data networking and the major
manufacturers who provide it. In essence it describes the network foundation on
which people access their business applications. For the most part, this report
focuses on equipment that resides at the customer premises, including
traditional LAN equipment as well as WAN access equipment. The report also
includes for the first time, a new class of equipment, described as Layer 4-7
switches, that supports higher-level functionality for IP (Internet/Intranet)
networks. Finally, from a product perspective, High-speed Internet access
equipment (DSL and Cable) is included in the report to provide a window for the
reader into how Internet service adoption in Canada is having an impact on other
types of data equipment.
Section 1 of the report provides an overview of data
networks and shows how network equipment has evolved to support today's complex
business processes. Section 2 examines some of the recent technology advances
and looks at new and emerging arenas such as wireless LANs and Virtual Private
Networks (VPNs). Section 3 profiles 17 major manufacturers and examines in
detail, their product offerings, market position and future directions along
with quantifying their shipments and revenues.
The Exhibits provide detailed quantitative information on
port & unit shipments and revenues, by major product segment and by company.
While some manufacturers track only ports and revenues and others track units
rather than ports, for the sake of completeness NBI/Michael Sone Associates has
rendered its estimates of all three units of measure. Market shares, position
and forecasts to 2004 expand the coverage.
This is NBI/Michael Sone Associates' second report on this
market and is the result of extensive research and discussion with the many
participants. The international nature of data communications and the
realignment of sales forces and operating territories by the equipment
manufacturers has reduced the focus on separating Canada from the rest of North
America. Nevertheless, NBI/Michael Sone Associates has, through its well-tested
practice of gathering information from primary sources, been able to produce a
document that is unique in its detail for Canada. Several new companies have
been added to this year's report that were not included in 2000. Notably,
Extreme Networks and Foundry Networks have established a presence in Canada and
it is expected that their market share will increase substantially throughout
2001. Additional changes from last year's report include the removal of any
research around Network Interface cards (NICs). This category has become of
little interest to the data networking community since, with the exception of
wireless, most PCs and laptops are built at the factory with an embedded NIC and
the commodity item is not seen by network designers or end users.
It is also expected that this report will change
significantly next year as most vendors will either have their own Voice over IP
products or will have partnered with other players to provide fully converged
voice-data products. It will, therefore, be increasingly difficult to separate
out data from voice equipment since IP switches will be marketed for different
applications even though they are built with the same operating system and may
well have the same form factors. For example, Avaya has a new PBX built with
DEFINITY PBX software on an IP switch. The IP600, is used for IP telephony -
however, it is technically an IP switch. Future editions of this report will
include products in this class and, therefore, the categories and nature of the
report is likely to change.
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