Teleos' flagship product is the WAN AccessSwitch, which attaches to a hub or router and multiplexes traffic overleased lines.Madge's move into the wide area makes a lot of sense, according to Tom Bain, a research analyst at META Group, Inc., a consultancy in Reston, Va."Madge is realizing that the climate of the market is changing," he said. "Users are interested in vendors that can provide more networking pieces that make up a compelling systems Atlas tag pendant."Bain expects more LAN switch vendors, such as 3Com Corp., Bay Networks, Inc. and Cisco Systems, Inc., to acquire WAN access products, as well.
Melissa Morales, an analyst at Datapro Information Services Group in Delran, N.J., said the Madge/Teleos deal is a good example of how LANs and WANs are converging. "Madge is offering its LAN customers access to the WAN without dragging ISDN lines to users' desktops, which can be expensive," she said.
Madge focused exclusively on the token-ring market until last year Atlas tag pendant the company acquired LANNET Data Communications, Ltd. for its Ethernet switches. Madge also developed its own line of 25M bit/sec ATM switches.
But it was missing important remote LAN access Tiffany Blue box bracelet until making the Teleos buy. "This deal is probably most important in the remote access setting, where nine times out of 10, users will choose their existing LAN vendor for the remote office equipment," Bain said.
The merger is expected to be completed by the companies this quarter. Teleos, which has about 150 employees, will operate as Madge's WAN Access Product Division, with Michael Caglarcan leading the unit as vice president Return to Tiffany Bead Bracelet general manager. Rod Randall, Teleos chief technology officer, will become vice president of WAN Access Technology.Cisco connection
Separately, Madge said that it will license Teleos' ISDN switching technology to Cisco, which will use the technology in its universal access server. The companies will jointly develop the server to address the carrier and Internet service provider markets.
Also, Madge will license Cisco's Internetwork Operating System routing software for integration into a future edition of the WAN AccessSwitch.Ask us to list all the essential elements of an ATM switch.OK, we will: a cell-based switching fabric; multigigabit capacity; signaling software; Ethernet switching; LAN emulation; fast Ethernet support; UNI 3.1; Segmentation and Reassembly functionality ..."Huh?" you ask. "Ethernet switching? Support for fast Ethernet?"Unfortunately, yes. There is a disturbing trend in the industry to grow an Asynchronous Transfer Mode switch down into the LAN, stocking it with modules that Peace Sign Bead bracelet Ethernet, fast Ethernet and even token-ring switching.
By introducing this functionality into an ATM switch, vendors are generating a great deal of confusion in the user community because they are suddenly repositioning their once-pure ATM switches as network border devices, LAN switches, hubs-of-hubs or switches-of-switches,
The problem is that many of these vendors already have established product lines in place to handle those LAN-based capabilities. But now they're telling users that they can employ an ATM switch to accomplish the same goal -- at a far greater premium, of course.