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Upon further review, Nortel softswitch wins not so impressive - Updated
Updated on 4/24 to clarify "customers" vs. "units"
Last week Nortel announced it had sold its CS 1500 softswitch - the replacement to its legacy DMS platform -- to more than 135 customers globally. A deeper look at press release numbers between the initial product launch and last week's announcement, however, indicates initial momentum from the product's introduction has died out over the past year.
A May 27, 2008, release by Innovative Systems - supplier of the APMAX application server OEMed to Nortel's CS 1500 - celebrates the 100th sale of the CS 1500 and notes the product was announced in March 2007.
By Nov. 20, 2008, Nortel had managed to sell the CS 1500 to "more than" 120 regional service providers throughout North America, so that equates to 20 sales over a six-month span and an average of around three sales per month.
Last week's announcement cites "more than" 135 service providers globally - so Nortel has expanded their pool beyond North America, so 135-120 units = 15 net, which leads to 15 units/5 months to deliver precisely three sales per month.
What does it all mean? "Nortel had some initial momentum, some service providers waiting for replacing DMS-10, the initial sales came from pent up demand," said Andy Randall, VP of marketing for MetaSwitch. "As people have looked at product capability more closely and looked at financial capability, there's been a very strong demand on [our] side, and a slowing down on Nortel and others....I think in general market terms, what we're seeing is quite a lot of nervousness about vendor stability, not just in switching, but in every area."
In comparison, MetaSwitch has added more than 300 customers in the past year, and about 30 customers in the last five months. Randle believes presenting a single platform for legacy switch replacement and applications is winning over many carriers.
For more:
- Innovate Systems marks 100 CS 1500 softswitch sale in 2008. Post.
- Nortel posts 120 wins in November 2008. Release.
- Nortel soldiers on with carrier VoIP
Related articles
The death and life of Nortel - FierceTelecom
More stories about Application Server Softswitches Legacy Switches Legacy Hardware cs 1500 DMS-10 Nortel
Comments
Posted by Anonymous | April 23, 2009 - 12:37pm
You're confusing units with customers. May 27th was the 100th unit sale. The Nov 20th reference is 120 customers. Many customers have deployed multiple units. You're analysis is completely flawed.
Posted by Doug Mohney | April 23, 2009 - 1:10pm
If anyone from Nortel wants to provide numbers on the number of units, I'd be happy to review and revise.
Posted by Anonymous | April 23, 2009 - 12:48pm
300 in the past year and only about 30 over the last 5 months?
So Metaswitch sold 270+ switches in the first 7 months and less than 30 in the last 5 months?
What happened?
Posted by Anonymous | April 23, 2009 - 1:43pm
99% of any CS1500 sales have to be for a single unit. The switch is too small to appeal to anyone big. Also, for anyone with multiple locations, why go with separate switches when you can use a distributed softswitch like the CS2K or MetaSwitch?!?
Posted by Andy Randall | April 23, 2009 - 5:48pm
The 30 is *new customers*. We've shipped many more systems than that.
Posted by Doug Mohney | April 23, 2009 - 10:54pm
OK, so per Mr. Randall's comment, the comparison is between apples to apples (new customers to new customers) not apples to oranges (new customers to new units).
Posted by Anonymous | April 23, 2009 - 11:12pm
Actually I'm not sure what were comparing. I see units and customers being used interchangably and there is not clarity as to what the article is trying to say. On the Nortel front we have 100 units compared to 120-135 customers and on the Metaswitch side we have 300 units referenced and then 30 customer in last 6 months. Overall the message is very unclear. Might be worth a rewrite-although I still don't see enough data to make any valid comparisons.
Posted by Doug Mohney | April 24, 2009 - 11:17am
We're going to change "units" to "customers" shortly...
Posted by Doug Mohney | April 24, 2009 - 2:20pm
If we continue to get "anonymous" posts tracking back to Nortel IP addresses in Canada, we will simply block anonymous posts and require authenticated registrations moving forward.
Posted by Anonymous | April 27, 2009 - 8:02am
what kind of analist are you? You write a negative article on Nortel's VoIP business, while you are depending on outdated and misinterupted data, coming largely from one of Nortel's competitor. Aren't you supposed to be independent?
Posted by Andy Randall | April 27, 2009 - 2:41pm
There is understandably some confusion here, since the edit that was made earlier corrected one error but introduced another.
Just to be clear what we are saying:
1) MetaSwitch shipped 300 *systems* over the last 12 months. We now have >900 total, compared with a total of 180 CS1500 systems shipped. This includes systems shipped to new and existing customers.
2) We have also added 30 *new customers* since November (compared with Nortel's 15).
Posted by Anonymous | April 27, 2009 - 4:13pm
From a service provider's standpoint, which company is in bankruptcy and which is not? 'nuf said
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