8/13/2007 -- By any standard, Cisco Systems Inc. dominates the enterprise switching market. One upshot of Cisco's dominance, market watchers say, is that it has unparalleled freedom to compete in other segments, particularly in new technology growth areas.

"Cisco is maintaining and slowly growing its leadership position in the mature LAN switching and WAN routing markets, and its drive to integrate LAN infrastructure with holistic enterprise security has kindled the market with competing solutions," wrote Michael Brandenburg, an analyst for enterprise network systems with consultancy Current Analysis. "While Cisco does not always have the fastest or lowest-cost solution in the market, it has staked its claim with non-stop reliability, availability, a world-class customer service organization and unmatched investment protection for its LAN products."

Enterprises vote with their dollars, Brandenburg observed, and Cisco continues to get the lion's share of them. The capital or good will Cisco has accumulated among enterprise buyers makes it possible to take technology chances and to expand its leadership role, he argued.

For example, Brandenburg said, Cisco has shifted its enterprise focus to encompass IP telephony, security applications and wireless access. The networking giant is also concentrating on fleshing out its application-aware infrastructure vision. At the same time, Cisco has staked out leadership positions in most of these segments.

"Cisco's Network Admission Control solution, both appliance and framework, has sparked an entire industry of competitors and created competitive opportunity and market growth," Brandenburg said.

Brandenburg doesn't anticipate completely smooth sailing for Cisco, of course. He points to mounting pressure on the security, switching and routing fronts, particularly from aggressive competitors such as Check Point Software, Juniper Networks and Nortel Networks. All three have developed security frameworks in response to Cisco's Self-Defending Network vision.

"Juniper continues to expand its enterprise footprint with products that target Cisco's ISR in the WAN routing and security markets and its NAC infrastructure via the Infranet Controller," he said. "In the enterprise LAN segment, Cisco is once again trailing on port density and overall chassis capacity as competitors deliver next generation switches."

Nevertheless, Brandenburg said, Cisco stays its course.

"Cisco enjoys the lion's share of the market, holding closely to loyal customers that value investment protection over the latest speeds and feeds. Cisco faces challenges every day from highly agile competitors, but also plods on at a steady pace, generally having technology ready for the market by the time there is significant enterprise demand," he said.

Brandenburg particularly highlighted Cisco's acquisition strategy, its push for a converged, voice-enabled infrastructure, and its partnerships with industry heavyweights like IBM Corp. and Microsoft Corp.

"Cisco's competitors have typically been unable to acquire technology with the same timeliness due to a lack of financial resources and/or a lack of momentum to drive those purchases. In addition, because of Cisco's penchant for purchasing companies, it has become adept at integrating other organizations with its own, a skill that many competitors lack," he pointed out.

Elsewhere, on the voice convergence front, Cisco's Integrated Services Router portfolio enables an impressive degree of voice and data integration and service density.

"The ISR is the fastest and most well-adopted product in Cisco's history, according to Cisco, with over 1 million units sold in the first 18 months of the product's life," Brandenburg said. "As a result of Cisco's success, several competitors have introduced similar strategies of delivering router-based voice platforms."

Finally, there's Cisco's partnership strategy. "Cisco has over 60 partners backing its Network Access Control program, giving it a strong differentiator over competitors that have paired with only a single posture assessment vendor," he concluded. "Cisco's size and its clout in the enterprise, as well as its early push with NAC, have given it a high degree of muscle with which to steer the industry." --Stephen Swoyer