Cisco Leads in SBC Market
Cisco Leads in SBC Market by UCStrategies Staff
According to researcher Infonetics, Cisco has for the first time taken the lead spot from Acme Packet in enterprise session border controller (SBC) market share, and is also predicted to persist in growing stronger for this segment.
In the first half of 2012, $82.5 million was reached as an accumulation of worldwide revenue for enterprise SBCs, and this is expected to top $430 million overall by 2016, according to the Infonetics report released on Monday.
Acme Packet is not giving up without a fight and has announced enhancements to its SBC portfolio via the launch of its Net-Net 6300 SBC appliance which lowers service provider capital and operational costs, and reduces the number of managed SBC elements in the network by as much as 75 percent. Net-Net 6300 also enables the appliance to control 200,000 signaled sessions, 80,000 media sessions and one million subscribers simultaneously.
However, the combination of Cisco's overbearing presence in IP-PBXs and Acme Packet's recent struggles have secured Cisco in top place with regard market share, and both Cisco and Acme Packet persist in dominating the enterprise SBC spend. According to Infonetics, Acme Packet, which had a strong 34 percent in the full year of 2011, was overtaken by Cisco with roughly a 26 percent share in enterprise SBC sales in the first half of 2012.
Infonetics principal analyst for VoIP, UC and IMS, Diane Myers, said in a research note, “Cisco's been able to turn its market-leading position in IP-PBXs, VoIP gateways and data networking equipment into an advantage, upselling its enterprise SBCs to this customer base as they transition to services such as SIP trunking.”
Furthemore, it was also mentioned that the biggest enterprise SBC segment are those systems which needed less than 800 sessions.
Fifteen vendors in the enterprise SBC space are tracked in the research, ranging from the main networking companies such as Cisco, Avaya and Siemens Enterprise Communications to up-and-coming companies like AudioCodes, Edgewater, Ingate and Sangoma.
As customers adapt to communications protocols like SIP and the architectures they require, SBCs similarly grow alongside these. SBCs have been marketed as a prime channel opportunity by many vendors such as Sonus Networks, which has broadened into enterprise SBC sales territory following its former carrier-focus concentration. (CY) Link