Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexers (DSLAMs) port shipments grew at a solid rate in 2004, but the rate of growth is expected to decline in coming years as the DSL market matures, reports In-Stat. The competition in the DSLAM market is fierce with many large global vendors and small vendors competing for contracts, a trend that will shrink average selling prices over the next several years, the high-tech market research firm says. "Worldwide DSLAM revenues will stay relatively flat, ranging from $3.1 - $3.3 billion over the next several years," says Henry Goldberg, In-Stat analyst. "The market will be highly competitive, with vendors increasing revenues only by taking market share away from other vendors." Alcatel had the leading market share in all regions, except the Asia-Pacific region, in 2004. Huawei had the second-leading worldwide market share, driven by their sales to the booming broadband market in China. IP DSLAMs are growing in popularity, and will become the dominant form of DSLAM in the future, replacing the older, ATM-based DSLAMs. DSLAM vendors also need to have a complete solution for support of triple-play services.
Every product roadmap conversation with a technology vendor now runs through one filter that has nothing to do with the roadmap itself: does the company have an AI story that a buyer's finance team would actually underwrite. Forrester Research just gave that gut check a formal structure. Its newly introduced AI Disruption Model evaluates 17 technology and service categories, spanning more than 200 individual markets, against nine factors including AI substitutability, labor intensity, and switching costs. The finding that should reorder tech vendor strategy conversations this quarter is not which markets grow. It is how few of them do, and what that scarcity means for everyone else. Only Three Categories Get an Unambiguous Green Light According to the research, infrastructure providers such as cloud platforms, data centers, and storage; data and AI providers spanning models, platforms, and governance tooling; and cybersecurity and identity providers covering zero trust and AI agent...