Highly unlikely. Aptis had a better product, the only thing I felt
was serious PM-4 competition, but Nortel sucked them up a while back
and has been tight lipped about what they are doing with the design.
But Assured Access really isn't offering anything radical - and they
are up against the PM-4, the Cisco AS5800, 3Com HiPer Access, and -
soon - the Ascend TNT II. From what I know, the TNT II sounds to be a
good HW design - as the MAX6000 is to the 4000, the TNT II will be to
the TNT. ie, what it should have been inthe first place. And the Bay
5000 MSX, or should I say Nortel.
All of the products do, are are expected to, support ATM/SONET
technologies, Voice over IP, OC-3 (or faster) links, SS7 signalling,
etc. Will Assured be able to keep up with the big names in
development and support - old names like Telebit (all but totally dead
now) and Shiva (very sickly) are struggling to compete. Even Bay was
struggling with their access gear. There is room for niche players,
but if that niche shifts, ouch. Computone was an up and comer - then
digital modems came out, they couldn't react fast enough, and now they
are no longer even a small player. Even Microcomm, Hayes, MultiTech,
etc were hit by the sudden market shift.
I think it is more likely that, if Assured starts showing signs of
success, some bigger player will simply buy them up. Which is
probably better for the employees with stock options and any
investors.
Hmm - I see the finally announced the 16 slot model in April. So
little had been happening with them I stopped keeping track of their
announcements. Still, it is a lot bigger than a PM-4, a lot less
dense, and uses more power, and (if I can trust the reps I've talked
to) the OS is a patchwork of internal and outsourced pieces. They
only started shipping product in March. The backplane is only 2Gbps
(PM-4 is 5Gbps), and they use TDM for the DS0s. 6000 slots by their
website. That means the product would run out if they double the
density. And doubling, trippling, and MORE is expected from at least
some of the competition - in the same chassis.
And don't forget ACC - they've had the Tigris, a very similar product
line, for a while now. And haven't made a noticable dent in the market,
despite being one of the first vendors with a high density product,
and having a number of features the big names do not. They just don't
have enough to penetrate the market.
The real competition I see for the PM-4 is the AS5800 - and that has some
design deficencies. If it lives up to the grapevine information, the REAL
competition will be the MAX TNT II. Ascend is still the largest player,
and if they manage to produce a solid chassis it will have some series
industry weight. While they still suffer from software faults, they
have improved with time.
-MZ
-- <URL:mailto:megazone@megazone.org> Gweep, Discordian, Author, Engineer, me.. Join ISP/C Internet Service Providers' Consortium <URL:http://www.ispc.org/> "A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men" 781-788-0130 <URL:http://www.gweep.net/> <URL:http://www.megazone.org/> Hail Discordia! - To unsubscribe, email 'majordomo@livingston.com' with 'unsubscribe portmaster-users' in the body of the message. Searchable list archive: <URL:http://www.livingston.com/Tech/archive/>