Andrew Schmitt

How 100 Gigabit Ethernet Markets Will Differ from 10

"... any new fixed-function chip like an ASIC or ASSP will increasingly need multiple vendors over which it can recover nonrecurring development costs, which was not true five years ago."

And the problem is that Cisco is 60-70% of the market, they use ASICs, and will always use ASICs for high volume applications so long as they are 60-70% of the market.