Cisco Continues To Rule Switch Markets

Cisco continues to dominate the switch market, with a 44% revenue and 44% port market share in the L4-L7 switch-load balancer without SSL market, and a 66% revenue and 34% port market share in the L2-L3 Ethernet switch market, according to two new reports from Infonetics Research.

The reports also found that the worldwide layer 4-layer 7 switch-load balancer market gained 13% in revenue between the second and third quarters, after a 5% decline between the first and second quarters of this year, and that worldwide layer 2 through layer 3 Ethernet switch port shipments increased 15% and revenue increased 6% to $3.8 billion between the second and third quarters.

The service found that Cisco remains dominant in the L4-L7 switch-load balancer without SSL market with a 44% revenue market share and 44% port market share. F5 is the worldwide leader in the L4-L7 switch-load balancer with SSL market, with 49% revenue and 51% port market share, but is facing strong competition from Cisco and Nortel, the service added.

In the L2-L3 Ethernet switch market, fixed switches represent just under half of all switch revenue, and chassis switches represent just over half; in 2003, the split was 40% to 60% but by 2007 will be 50% to 50%, the service claimed.