Gets stonger in router and contact center solutions, but loses ground in switching and RAS.

Competitor’s envy, owner’s pride. That is what Cisco’s story in India signifies. Yet again, this big but agile company proved that at the end of the day, action talked better than mere sound-bytes. Last fiscal, Cisco Systems (India) Pvt Ltd widened the gap that it had built between it and the rest of the industry, by growing 125 percent to register a turnover of Rs 765 crore. The nearest company was in the region of Rs 250 crore.

For this year’s No. 1 networking company, it was a landmark year with John Chambers visiting India. From the market perspective, however, Cisco Systems had a mixed year. It increased its dominance over the router market; gained market share in the IP contact center space; held on to the No. 1 position in LAN switch; but lost out in the RAS segment1. LAN switch positive side, Cisco introduced cutting-edge technologies like the IP+ optical solutions, AVVID, IP telephones and contact center solution, etc.

Juniper and Unisphere did make their entry, but it was Cisco all the way. From banks connecting their bran-ches, to manufacturing companies setting up WANs, to ISPs setting up their infrastructure or expanding it—the orders kept coming in. Even in the telecommunications space, where the router startups are trying their best to make a dent, it took the credit of implementing the country’s first Gigabit backbone in VSNL’s network. Again, in the emerging contact/call center space, Cisco had just the right solutions in a converged infrastructure scenario.

But the bad news came in the switching and RAS segments, where one saw Cisco facing intense competition from Enterasys and 3Com.

This year, the much-awaited optical networking deployments are likely to get kicking. And Cisco, like others, is also seen waiting to play its card, which will be based on its end-to-end capabilities and disruptive technologies. This is a strategy that has so far worked well for it in the enterprise space. But will it be a repeat in the telecom space?