Cisco for the first time has overtaken Acme Packet in enterprise session border controller (SBC) market share, according to researcher Infonetics, which also forecast continually strong growth for the segment.
Worldwide revenue for enterprise SBCs hit about $82.5 million in the first half of 2012 and is expected to top $430 million overall by 2016, Infonetics said in a report released Monday.
Acme Packet and Cisco continue to dominate the enterprise SBC spend, but Cisco's substantial presence in IP-PBXes, as well as Acme Packet's recent struggles, have tipped the overall market share in Cisco's favor. Cisco bested Acme Packet with a roughly 26 percent share of enterprise SBC sales in the first half of 2012, Infonetics said, vs. Acme Packet's dominant 34 percent share for the full-year 2011.
[Related: Acme Packet Buys Network Management Specialist IPTEGO]
"Cisco's been able to turn its market-leading position in IP- PBXes, VoIP gateways and data networking equipment into an advantage, upselling its enterprise SBCs to this customer base as they transition to services such as SIP trunking," Diane Myers, Infonetics principal analyst for VoIP, UC and IMS, said in a research note.
Infonetics also noted that systems requiring fewer than 800 sessions are the largest enterprise SBC segment.
The researcher tracks about 15 vendors in the enterprise SBC space, from large networking companies such as Cisco, Avaya and Siemens Enterprise Communications to emerging players such as AudioCodes, Edgewater, Ingate and Sangoma.
SBCs are growing along with the customer embrace of communications protocols such as SIP and the infrastructure they require. Several vendors have marketed SBCs as a prime channel opportunity, including Sonus Networks, which recently expanded into enterprise SBC sales from its previously carrier-focused purview.
PUBLISHED OCT. 22, 2012
