Geez, I remember hearing this arguement 5-6 years ago. First generation SBCs aren't good enough, bigger boxes needed, distributed is the way to go, etc.
Newport pushed this approach. Is Metaswitch reprising this mistaken view?
I think the big difference now is the flexibility of the underlying hardware as much as anything... the Newport boxes were hunking great room-fillers on proprietary hardware designed for major carrier interconnection points. By the time that company realized the initial market was in smaller, cheaper SBCs it was too late to save... Newport had something of a "build it big and they will come" approach that didn't fit the market demand.
It looks like Metaswitch has a good approach with ATCA hardware and independent scaling of capacity, and it should know what's right for the market as it has been a SBC software stack supplier and Acme box reseller for years, so it's not new to the SBC market in general. It's also quite a careful company that doesn't chase its own tail, so I believe there is something solid in its approach.
But the other players in the market, especially Acme, haven't been sitting in a bunker and Acme in particular has an incredibly strog position from which to evolve and retain significant market power, which I'd expect it to do. I imagine the key battle will be amongst ALU, Metaswitch, Sonus and Genband to pick up what Acme doesn't.
Geez, I remember hearing this arguement 5-6 years ago. First generation SBCs aren't good enough, bigger boxes needed, distributed is the way to go, etc.
Newport pushed this approach. Is Metaswitch reprising this mistaken view?