I'm just curious if industry observers feel that this win for AlcaLu at 100G is a sign of weakness for Nortel's MEN group. Since the Nortel saga began, it has seemed in the press that their MEN 100G & 40G technology was still well positioned and respected. Is this the tipping point from which Nortel can't recover leadership at the next generation of networks?
I have said many times over the past several months that the longer a MEN sale drags out, the less valuable MEN becomes to buyers. Competitors are not standing still in 40G or (especially) 100G. Aside from this announcement, we've already seen the 1st commerical 100G win from Ciena. Also, Huawei is moving aggressively to roll out its own 100G.
How can you possibly compare Nortel's MEN to ALU's IP/MPLS Service Router or any other Core IP/MPLS vendor such as Juniper or Cisco? Yes that's correct the 100GigE win, as it's called comes in the form of technology which resides in an IP/MPLS router, etc..
ALU's 100Gig win at Qwest is a sign of ALU's strength, against competitors such as Cisco and Juniper (has nothing to do with Nortel's MEN).
Phil: Qwest is also saying it will use Alcatel-Lucent's optical gear for transport on the new backbone. That's the part Sterling and Rationator are talking about, not the router.
Ah yes correct my bad :). So it's a combined IP/MPLS and Optical win for ALU. Even better. Would this be the first 100GigE router/optical backbone in North America?
Lets not get ahead of ourselves here people. Rarely does an early win or two in new technology indicate who is going to lead that market. For example, look at who were the first to land 40G deals vs. how the market evolved.
This market in particular has shown little advantage of being the first to market (or to land a customer). Its yet to be seen who has the best mass-deployable 100G transport solution.
Lets not get ahead of ourselves here people. Rarely does an early win or two in new technology indicate who is going to lead that market. For example, look at who were the first to land 40G deals vs. how the market evolved.
This market in particular has shown little advantage of being the first to market (or to land a customer). Its yet to be seen who has the best mass-deployable 100G transport solution.
simple incumbency to my mind won here. There were certainly lots of technical factors and price factors, but I think in the discussion one of the most powerful factors was overlooked. Incumbency, relationship, and knowledge of the carrier's operations and needs gleaned over many years.
NOTE: The Qwest backbone network was deployed using mostly Lucent Lambda Extreme. Announced a few years ago. Carrying 10G DWDM and some lambda's at 40G. Also known that Qwest is a customer of the Lambda Unite switch.
Not surprising that Qwest would use the ALU router for IP transport applications. Probably some common network wide system management hooks were nicely integrated into the overall package that a pure play router vendor would have trouble competing against.
Well abashford no one is getting ahead of anything. If anything all we are doing is making observations. BTW the optical win may not be a significant indication of much (in some minds), but winning a Core IP routing play against the likes of Cisco and Juniper, is an accomplishment. Only time will tell how things develop above and beyond that.
I don't recall reading that anyone claimed to have the best 100Gig anything in any of the previous posts. Being first the to market does demonstrate an ability to innovate however.
In addition I agree with sailboat. Technology is only "one" of the many factors carriers evaluate when making key decisions.
sailboat: "simple incumbency to my mind won here."
I don't know - but it could have been a package deal thing - optical + edge + core routers. I would guess that some incumbency relationship might exist, but equipment wise this looks like a former Alcatel product replacing a former Lucent product, so I don't think the incumbency of equipment is a factor.
I'm just curious if industry observers feel that this win for AlcaLu at 100G is a sign of weakness for Nortel's MEN group. Since the Nortel saga began, it has seemed in the press that their MEN 100G & 40G technology was still well positioned and respected. Is this the tipping point from which Nortel can't recover leadership at the next generation of networks?
_Rationator