Broadband vital to network appliance market

Vendors and resellers must act now to capitalise on a rapidly expanding market, says Nick Morse.

With the UK market for network appliances in its infancy, there is an opportunity for vendors and resellers to carve out a niche for themselves supplying a focused range of products to resellers, value-add resellers and systems integrators.

This opportunity has been highlighted by the success of vendors, including Netscreen and SonicWall, that are meeting the demand for dedicated devices such as firewalls, all-in-one internet access devices, mail servers, caching devices and storage.

But the market is still young and is set for rapid growth over the next few years, according to analyst IDC.

The demand from small and medium sized enterprises lies in integrated appliances that incorporate firewalls, virtual private networks, antivirus scanning, intrusion detection systems and URL blocking.

Early reaction to the 'one box, one solution' approach has been very positive, especially around vendors like ServGate.

Likewise, Symantec's recent entry into the appliance market from its previous position as a firewall vendor for NT and Solaris platforms is testimony to the opportunity.

Larger enterprises are not so concerned about multiple functions but want robust, high-performance solutions, including high-availability and carrier-class redundant platforms.

ServGate has approached this market aggressively through its adoption of Intel network processors, while its competitors continue to employ off-the-shelf Pentium processors not optimised for network traffic, or ASIC with its inherent limitations.

Despite the efforts of pioneering vendors, one factor will be the catalyst for growth in the network appliance market: broadband.

The Global Standard High-Bit-Rate Digital Subscriber Line is expected to roll out during the first quarter of 2003, and products are being developed to meet these high speeds. This year will see the evolution of Digital Subscriber Line from a consumer to a business driven technology.

This year is also set to be a turning point for Gigabit. Although high-speed networks from the likes of Foundry and Extreme are already available, there has been hesitation in adoption due to the lack of appliances. Gigabit firewalling and security will drive the adoption of high-speed Wan services throughout the year.

The routes to market are maturing and the network appliance sector is coming of age, but a lack of true business broadband remains the bottleneck in the networking channel.

Nick Morse is managing director of Mindshare.