Sales Of Cisco's Ethernet Switching Gear Rising At Rivals' Expense Competitors Are Foundering The technology underlying Cisco's Ethernet gear has caught up to other firms'.(INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY)

Byline: MIKE ANGELL

Network gear maker Cisco Systems Inc. gained last quarter in the high-end router market against rival Juniper Networks Inc. How's it doing in the hotly contested Ethernet switch market against different rivals?

The market for these switches -- key gear in networks that run on a protocol, or set of transmission rules, called Ethernet, the most used networking protocol -- is split among Cisco and a handful of companies. They include Extreme Networks Inc., Foundry Networks Inc. and Enterasys Networks Inc.

Cisco has gained in this market, too. Market share figures aren't yet available, but in the fourth quarter Cisco's Ethernet switch sales rose to $1.68 billion from $1.40 billion in the previous quarter, says market tracker Dell'Oro Group.

Much of that gain came at the expense of rivals. Foundry missed both sales and earnings estimates for that quarter. Enterasys warned it's likely to miss sales targets for the fourth quarter. It's delayed releasing results after revealing accounting irregularities. On Wednesday, it said it fired three employees in its Asia-Pacific region because of this situation.

UBS Warburg analyst Michael Weintraub says Cisco's newest Ethernet switches are coming closer to matching the quality of rivals that specialize in such gear.

"It's becoming increasingly difficult for any company to inject into the market a product that substantially differs from those of competitors," Weintraub said.