10G = $9.5B Says Research Firm

According to a new report from Infonetics Research, the market for 10 Gigabit per second (10Gbps) networking equipment will grow to $9.5B in 2008...this is up from $7.3B just last year.  That is quite the revenue jump, particularly in today's economy. Sean Michael Kerner at InternetNews.com has the full story which expands into the quest for 100 Gig Ethernet:

The researcher (Infonetics) is forecasting growth for 40G to have a compound annual growth rate of 59 percent from 2007 to 2011. Michael Howard, Infonetics' principal analyst and co-founder, said he expects service providers will take up 40G in the near term even though the faster 100G speed is also on the horizon.

100G is expected by Infonetics to start making inroads in 2009, though broader adoption and revenues are not expected until 2013, according to the study. Howard added that 100G is important as it will likely be in use until at least 2025.

In a conversation about these forecasts I thought our CTO Dennis Cox had an interesting comment:

"I think these predictions are a bit early; 10G in the back room, definitely, but you really need some 10G to the desktop (a minor portion at least) to make that much damage. Obviously, some applications are REALLY pushing bandwidth right now and bonding is getting much more common than even I thought it would become, so perhaps that is driving demand, which always skews analysts (in a good way). The other thing to think about; 10G chipsets are really expensive right now -1G is down to 40 bucks a port (which is really cheap) since 5 years ago it was 200 bucks a port."

Dennis is right, we are seeing 10G network equipment in the back room, and his look at the need up front and the chipset costs gel with many questions I have about these numbers. Since I do not have access to the report I'm not sure if Infonetics takes on the challenge that the delayed 40G/100G standard may pose, or the potential of an even steeper economic downturn. Would love to hear from Infonetics on this topic.

OK, here's your chance, tell me what you think of these predictions around 40G/100G, leave comments below or get involved with the conversation on Twitter.