Don't look for good news anywhere in that area if it doesn't come from Cisco. As IP goes, so goes optical. There can be no more of a baseless and naive position in all of networking than the view that optical networking is exploding while Cisco earnings fall short. We really need to assume that a Cisco shortfall translates to an industry shortfall. Later this spring or early summer, we can expect to see a major shakeout in the optical market, and a lesser one in networking overall.
Cisco has no strength there and needs some.
Cisco has no strength there, either. Because service switches are a kind of router successor product, Cisco may resist even admitting to their value. Broadband Internet won't make money. Wireless Internet won't make money. Non-Internet IP services already make money, as do frame relay, transparent LAN and other corporate data services.