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Reader Survey: Top Networking Vendors: Page 6 of 6

Despite the upheaval, many customers have stuck with Nortel. After years as a 3Com house and dissatisfaction with Cisco, Colonial Savings brought in Nortel to build out its networking infrastructure about five years ago and has stayed with the vendor because of its capabilities and flexibility for upgrades and prices. "I was pretty concerned about the company in the past couple years, but to my relief they've done an excellent job and their services have not seemed to have degraded," Hamidi says.

One thing is certain, though: Networking is far from being a set of commodity technologies that will be selected primarily on price. With business objectives such as wireless and VoIP making networking itself a top priority for businesses, and networking security risks continuing to rise, vendors that can convince customers that they're reliable partners with quality products that don't break the bank will reap most of the business.

Illustration by Darren Gygi