Fibre Channel Switch Sales Rebound in 2006

del'Oro:Fibre Channel HBA Sales Bolstered by Blade Server Market. Fibre Channel switches to accelerate during 2006, and to surpass $2.0 billion by 2009. Sales of Fibre Channel switches stalled in 2005, largely because distribution partners took a long time to test and approve the new higher-speed switches from Brocade and McDATA – not because of diminishing end-user demand. End-users have a healthy appetite for storage equipment, as demonstrated by EMC’s and IBM’s banner storage results in their most recent quarters. We think end-users plan to network their equipment to maximize utilization. Now, both Brocade and McDATA’s high-speed switches have passed qualification and are widely available to users – we think there is pent-up demand for these higher-speed switches.

Forecasts that Host Bus Adapter (HBA) manufacturers such as Emulex and QLogic will enjoy an extra boost in 2006, largely from the blade server market. Server vendors who manufactured their own blade server HBAs have captured the vast majority of this business to date; however, This business to shift to the Fibre Channel HBA manufacturers over the course of 2006. Fibre Channel Switch Sales Publ 20060126