Router Market Expected to Boom
According to In-Stat, sales of edge and core routers are expected to double to $8.4-billion in 2009 from $3.8-billion last year. The market is being driven by new business VPN and consumer triple-play services, and the evolution to converged networks. In particular, multi-service edge routers will be in demand to support corporate and residential services. Of course, this is positive news for Cisco Systems and Juniper Networks - the two heavyweights of the router market. Speaking of multi-service edge routers, when will the market see the commercial launch of Nortel's Neptune router? Although delayed by software problems, analysts said Nortel was offering demos during SuperComm. You wonder, however, if Nortel needs to make an acquisition to gain a bigger and faster foothold. What are Nortel's changes of acquiring one of the following: Tellabs, Redback or Caspian?
