Share Gains and Aggressive Prices Rock the Storage Area Network Fibre Channel Market

Dell’Oro: Cisco Neck-to-Neck with McDATA as Leader of High End Market. The trusted source for market information about the networking and telecommunications industries, sales of Fibre Channel storage area network (SAN) switches shot up 13 percent sequentially in the third quarter 2005, eclipsing the previous market high in fourth quarter, 2004. Market sales were propelled by the high-end Modular (director class) of switches. Cisco led this growth by garnering a number of large contracts. We surmise that contracts scheduled for earlier periods this year were delayed as customers tested, or waited for the availability of new products. Brocade’s aggressive low price on their new 4 Gbps platform, the 48000, has also resulted in extraordinary sales growth. Brocade’s average price per port on 4 Gbps is about $100 below the 2 Gbps systems offered by their competitors.

3Q05 Worldwide Modular SAN Switch Market Leaders (Revenue)*
Total Modular SAN Switches	3Q05
Manufacturers Revenue ($M)	$348
Vendor	Rank
McDATA	1
Cisco	2
Brocade	3
* Calendar period revenue growth.

SAN Quarterly Report Publ 20051209