One-stop telecoms dream set to fail

Networking vendors returning to basics in downturn

The current recession in the telecoms industry is changing the way the major networking vendors do business, forcing them to return to their specialisation of supplying large carriers, according to analyst firm Gartner Dataquest.

"The largest vendors will behave very differently, with a narrower product and customer focus," said Bhawani Shankar, principal analyst at Gartner.

The analyst said that the world's eight leading vendors will fail in their attempt to become one-stop suppliers of all the equipment required by carriers.

Alcatel, Ericsson, Lucent, Motorola, Nokia, Nortel and Siemens currently account for the lion's share of equipment sold to these providers and are being forced to refocus and become carrier-centric, rather than providing end-to-end solutions for enterprises as well.

Keith Humphreys, a consultant at EuroLAN research, agreed that the major vendors are changing, but warned they could struggle because "they have thrown so many resources away".

Shankar explained that Cisco is the exception to the rule among the top eight vendors. "Cisco is focusing more on its enterprise business, where it comes from, and less on the carriers," he said.