One nagging fear among internetworking customers is the prospect of higher prices as vendor options dwindle. But 76 percent of the IT managers surveyed say there has been no change in product pricing since their mergers. Fifteen percent say prices are somewhat or significantly lower today. But you don't want to have to deal with 10 or 15 vendors. Multinational companies, in particular, want common pricing and support, and the large vendors are especially well-positioned to deliver that, he adds.
Some prime examples are intelligent switching and virtual private networks.
Small companies can adapt quickly to market changes. The flip side, however, is that bigger companies with large engineering departments have more methodical design cycles that are easy for customers to follow. So there might be interoperability problems. So despite their openness to working with small vendors, IT managers are becoming more committed to big players than ever before. That's positive reinforcement.