12/3/2007 -- Everybody knows that Cisco Systems Inc. is tops in the enterprise networking segment, but what you might not know is that Cisco has also cobbled together formidable extra-enterprise product lineups.

Cisco grew its optical networking portfolio by leaps and bounds over the last half-decade, for example, and -- more recently -- has also expanded the depth, breadth and impact of its broadband product lineup.

In the broadband space, in fact, Cisco is competitive from the end user television top (thanks to its $7 billion acquisition of the former Scientific-Atlanta last year) all the way to the service-provider back end.

As a result, analysts say, Cisco now competes in a bevy of broadband market segments from infrastructure areas (such as cable operator network infrastructure solutions and carrier routing/aggregation) to consumer set-tops to small office/home office (SOHO) networking and DSL CPEs.

It was just a year ago, actually, that Cisco expanded the broadband video and IPTV delivery capabilities of its IP NGN architecture by introducing its Cisco Content Delivery System (CDS) and Video 2.0 feature set. CDS and Video 2.0 were significant deliverables for Cisco because they helped enable the mass scalability of video applications required to handle the storage, personalization and streaming requirements of subscribers' rising expectations, according to Ron Westfall, a research director with market watcher Current Analysis.

Elsewhere, Westfall pointed out, Cisco continues to lead the worldwide DOCSIS CMTS market, largely because of its "ability to continually enhance its cable solution set to meet strategic and evolving MSO needs" -- such as, for example, the delivery of its uBR 7225VXR CMTS platform in September, which enabled MSOs to address greenfield and low-density service opportunities more rapidly.

"Cisco continues to maintain market share leadership in the CMTS segment with a 59.7 percent share during [the first half of] 2007 based on worldwide equipment revenues," Westfall pointed out.

Then there was Cisco's Scientific Atlanta coup, which, Westfall said, "bolsters [its] IP NGN proposition via the addition of STB, video distribution and video system integration portfolio assets, expanded channel influence in the overall video networking space, and better positions Cisco to fulfill operator efforts to evolve towards full-service models for consumers and enterprises."

Nor can you discount Cisco's leadership on the network edge, where it controls 54.2 percent of overall share, according to market watcher Synergy Research Group.

All of this helps make Cisco's position formidable, to be sure. But the networking giant isn't impregnable, Westfall noted. "Cisco is under attack from large and small rivals in all of the broadband access market segments the company targets," he pointed out.

For one thing, Cisco must compete against "mega-merger" foes -- companies such as Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) and Ericsson/Redback -- "all of which are poised to compete more frequently and directly with Cisco for strategic carrier business in the area of operator equipment solution sets."

There's also pressure from established rivals, including Juniper, ARRIS, UTStarcom, Motorola, Huawei and ZTE in both international and domestic broadband infrastructure accounts.

Westfall anticipates other challenges, too. "Cisco continues to lead and compete effectively within the Ethernet FTTH segment, although the ongoing emergence of GPON could compel Cisco to diversify its FTTH portfolio options into the GPON realm as well," he said. "Currently, Cisco's approach to the DSLAM market segment now consists of supporting existing customers and pursuing only profitable opportunities (primarily with partner-supplied solutions at this point), which has eliminated Cisco's market share position."

It might behoove Cisco to augment its telco assets, too. "Cisco lacks telco assets in areas such as the BLC/MSAP segment, which limits evolving carrier multimedia/packet voice integration efforts, as BLC/MSAP platforms play a vital role in how telcos implement multi-play service offerings," Westfall said. --Stephen Swoyer