Confused resellers thinking how can Cisco, Avaya and Nortel all be the number one player need to read the small print as the devil is as ever in the detail with each vendor hanging their respective hats on individual product market segments, sector and definitions of IP.
Comms Business Magazine says ‘don’t blame the PBX vendors’ as all they do is look at the top of the analysts spreadsheet, see their name and phone their PR spin meisters to get the news out.
Who should we blame then for having three heavyweight champions?
In one respect it is a bit like boxing in that there is no definitive body recognised as the de facto controlling organisation that everyone agrees upon as having the true champion. It’s an open market for analysts and they are all entitled to do the research work and publish their views.
On the other hand, just like you and me, analysts have clients (most are too posh to call them customers) and their clients pay money which in turn funds the reports they produce and just like you and I, analysts need to keep their punters happy.
The result is an obfuscation of epic proportions where market shares are defined by any and all parameters that show one of their major clients winning at least one race.
Cynic? Moi?
Anyway, back to the statistics, what do Nortel say? And I quote…
“Dell’Oro Group reported that Nortel sustained a significant market share lead in the global next generation networks (NGN) carrier market which grew 55 percent in 2005. Nortel held 21.5 percent share for the full year of 2005 and 26 percent share for the fourth quarter of 2005 in carrier IP telephony, as well as maintained revenues more than double its closest competitor in the fourth quarter. Dell'Oro ranked Nortel as the global leader in enterprise IP telephony line shipments with 23.3 percent share for the fourth quarter of 2005.”
According to Synergy Research Group, Nortel is the global carrier VoIP market leader for the entire year of 2005 with 19 percent share based on revenue and 18 percent share based on ports shipped. Nortel also leads in carrier softswitch and overall media gateway ports, as well as in VoIP and voice over ATM gateway categories for the entire year of 2005. Synergy Research Group also ranked Nortel as the global leader in enterprise telephony based on ports shipped for the entire year of 2005.
Infonetics attributes 23 percent revenue share to Nortel for the full year of 2005, and 26 percent revenue share for the fourth quarter of 2005 for worldwide carrier softswitches and trunk gateways. Infonetics ranked Nortel as the global leader in enterprise telephony line shipments for the entire year and fourth quarter of 2005 with 19 percent share. In addition, Infonetics ranked Nortel the leader in North American enterprise telephony line shipments for the entire year and fourth quarter of 2005 with 26 percent share.”
I once said to an analyst, “What kind of sycophant are you?” He replied, “What kind of sycophant would you like me to be?”