Latest study suggests that tighter margins and greater competition to transform network connectivity as customers put quality and price over brand
ProLabs, the leading independent provider of global optical network infrastructure products, announced today the findings of their survey conducted at the 2014 European Conference on Optical Communications (ECOC) with top optical communications professionals from across the globe.
"The study reveals that the decades long dominance of the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) may be at a crossroads," said Nick Moglia, CEO of ProLabs. "It is yet another sign of a trend we have been seeing in recent years where the optical products market is maturing and customers are increasingly open minded about where they source their parts from. Buyers are becoming increasingly pragmatic and are putting high quality in preference for simply 'a label'.
"No longer, to my mind, do they feel duty-bound to a particular OEM."
The key survey findings were as follows:
98 per cent of respondents ranked quality as one of their top three priorities when purchasing fibre optics
89 per cent of respondents placed price in the top three
Yet only 14 per cent of respondents even considered brand names to be a top three concern
This shift in customers' attitudes is driven by their concern of greater competition increasingly eating into their margins with over 61 per cent of respondents placing this concern as the primary factor keeping them awake at night.
Moglia added, "In spite of what OEM's say, optical component parts are now a commodity and not a monopoly."
www.prolabs.com
