Breaking News - Networking:
Cisco Rules L4-L7 Switch/Load Balancer Market
The worldwide layer 4-layer 7 switch/load balancer market bounced back with a
13 percent increase in revenue between 2Q04 and 3Q04, after a 5 percent
decline between 1Q04 and 2Q04, according to Infonetics Research's quarterly
market share and forecast service, L4-L7 Switches and SSL Products. Unit
shipments increased 5 percent over 2Q04, and will grow in the low single
digits from 1Q05 through 3Q05.
As there are no compelling applications driving increases in L4-L7 products
right now, vendors are struggling to maintain revenue at current levels,
though some are expected to see low single-digit growth in the coming
quarters. The growth, albeit slow, in annual worldwide revenue through 2007 is
being driven mainly by SSL-enabled L4-L7 switch/load balancers.
"For the third quarter in a row, revenue for layer 4-layer 7 switch/load
balancers with SSL increased in the low double digits, growing 11 percent in
3Q04 to $58 million," said Matthias Machowinski, directing analyst with
Infonetics Research and author of the report. "Many companies have been
integrating SSL functionality into their high-end switching portfolios over
the last year, and SSL-enabled products now make up 38 percent of the total
layer 4-layer 7 switch/load balancer market. That's a significant portion, and
we expect to see it increase further through 2007."
3Q04 Market Highlights
- Cisco is the worldwide leader in L4-L7 switch/load balancer without SSL
market, with 44 percent revenue market share and 44 percent port market share;
Cisco is also the market share leader in LAN switching overall.
- F5 is the worldwide leader in the L4-L7 switch/load balancer with SSL
market, with 49 percent revenue and 51 percent port market share, but face
strong competition from Cisco and Nortel.
- Worldwide total dedicated SSL hardware revenue is up 3 percent from 2Q04.
L4-L7 Switches and SSL Products tracks SSL server peripheral cards and
dedicated SSL appliances, and layer 4-7 switches/load balancers with and
without SSL. Forecasts are updated quarterly and cover all regions (worldwide,
North America, EMEA, Asia Pacific, and CALA). Companies tracked in this
service include AEP, BlueCoat, Broadcom, Cisco, Dell, Extreme, F5, Foundry,
Hewlett-Packard, nCipher, NetScaler, Nokia, Nortel, Radware, SonicWALL,
TopLayer and others.
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