Dealer Perspectives - The heat is on

The temperature is near to boiling point in the networking market.Players will have to focus on one technology if they don't want to gettheir fingers burnt.

Just how much the networking market is worth all depends on how it is defined. According to research firm IDC, the total information/communications market was worth $1.3 trillion in 1997, while it valued the western European ISP market at $4.3 billion in 1998. And that's big.

If these figures sound high, just think about what the networking market actually is. It encompasses a huge range of technologies, from simple NICs, connectors and cables, to the costly hubs, switches and routers that form the hardware of the network infrastructure.