Top > Webmaster > 2005 > September > 2005-09-01

Cisco Crowned Router Race Leader

Infonetics Research conducted a recent study on 180 companies about how they select routers and vendors. The factors the companies` ranking were based on included price, customer satisfaction, security, technology, value, product roadmap, financial stability, as well as a few others. Cisco Systems lead the way, with five other router making companies closely following. The other enterprise router makers included 3Com, Adtran, Enterasys, Juniper and Nortel.

When asked which vendor they would buy from, Cisco topped the list, followed by Juniper. Despite Cisco`s leading position, it fell short in the pricing and value categories, finishing behind 3Com, Adtran, Juniper and Nortel. `Cisco`s vulnerability in the pricing category increased this year, with all vendors but one outscoring them, and with Juniper outscoring them on value,` Matthias Machowinski, directing analyst at Infonetics Research, said in a statement. `Still, Cisco continues to get the highest satisfaction marks overall - almost double the votes than competitors.`

The desire to limit network downtime was cited as a the top reason for investing in new routers (71 percent), followed by security (68 percent), increasing network capacity (66 percent) and lowering operating cost (54 percent). Extending network life and enabling new applications rounded out the list with 53 percent and 43 percent, respectively.

In an earlier report, Infonetics said revenues for enterprise routers during the first quarter of 2005 were $750 million, a 20 percent drop over the same period in 2004. Though revenue declined, shipments actually increased by 4 percent in a trend that Infonetics forecasts will result in 1.9 million units being shipped in 2008. Machowinski said that figures improved in the second quarter of 2005, where total revenue was up up 4 percent to $791 million and units climbed 6 percent to 420,000.