10 most powerful companies in networking, The

Industry-shaping technology visions, strong financials and market domination these network vendors stand out among all others. We rank them, 1 to 10.

1. CISCO: INFRASTRUCTURE MIGHT, NETWORK INDUSTRY BELLWETHER

Biggest announcement in 2003: True 10G switch. In April, Cisco released the Supervisory Engine 720, a module for the Catalyst 6500 family that brings these switches truelOG bit/sec performance. Before this.SG was the max.

Financial track record:

Q1 FY '04 net income of $1.1 billion.

Q4 FY '03 net income of $991 million.

Q3 FY '03 net income of $987 million.

Q2 FY '03 net income of $982 million.

Power of numbers: No. 1 worldwide in Ethernet switching and enterprise/service provider routers. No. 14 on the Network World 200 (NW200),our annual list of the top 200 network vendors (www.nwfusion.com, DocFinder: 9035).

What's on tap for 2004? Cisco will aggressively pursue the next billion-dollar infrastructure markets - storage, security and IP telephony - via internal development and technology acquisition.