Cisco sees EMEA rivals close gap
Analyst report reveals competition is gaining ground on networking giant
Cisco’s grip on the EMEA enterprise router, switch and security markets has slipped, according to research firm Canalys.
The research assessed the EMEA enterprise networking and security markets for the third quarter of 2005. It gaged the performance of vendors based on market share in the router, switch and security segments.
Cisco’s router share was hit hardest with a 10.1 per cent market share slump from Q2 2004. Its switch market slice also fell by 7.3 per cent, and its security market share dropped by 1.4 per cent.
Rivals are gaining on the networking giant in the router market after Juniper Networks’ share jumped to 17.7 per cent from 13.8 per cent last year. Vendor 3Com also chalked up a 1,237 per cent year-on-year growth as it benefited from its majority state in the Huawei-3Com joint venture
Andy Buss, senior analyst at Canalys, said: “Cisco remains strong in most markets, but there has been growing competition from its rivals.”
Cisco still had a 73.1 per cent share of the router market. It also headed the switch market with a 60.3 per cent slice, and it had an 18.8 per cent share of the security market.
“In the enterprise space Cisco still has the dominant share, but Juniper’s new approach for carriers has won it some Cisco customers,” Buss said.
He added that there has been inc-reased investment from vendors to improve infrastructure and fuel growth.
Elad Shaviv, manager for security business operations in European and emerging markets at Cisco, was unconcerned by the research and said the networking giant will push its adaptive security appliances (ASA) range of products in 2006.
“We plan to invest in the capabilities of the ASA range as we believe the market is moving to multi-function and adaptive security appliances,” he said.