Sooner or later, most IT pros land on the pointy end of a switch upgrade. But if you simply re-up with your current vendor--especially if that's the market leader--you could miss a prime opportunity to enhance your network via cutting-edge technology at a price that beats the competition.

Of course, whiz-bang can't come at the expense of dependability: When we asked readers why they're upgrading their switch architectures, 56% named reliability as the main driver, followed by more bandwidth at the core and access layer. This need for speed is reflected in a recent Infonetics report that predicts sales increases of 10% in Gigabit Ethernet ports and a doubling of 10 Gigabit Ethernet port sales. That doesn't surprise us: The 36% premium for a Gigabit Ethernet port over a 10/100 port, roughly $63, is chump change when you consider the extra bandwidth and network future-proofing.

While Cisco Systems is the undisputed market leader in terms of units shipped, that doesn't mean it has a lock on new technologies, service and support, reliability, or cost. Switches from rival vendors such as Alcatel-Lucent, Extreme Networks, Foundry Networks, Hewlett-Packard ProCurve, and 3Com compete feature for feature. HP's policy of free firmware upgrades for the ProCurve switch line, for example, is a huge benefit if you let your support contact lapse or purchase used equipment.

Of course, Cisco isn't about to sit back and let rivals ace the race toward bigger, faster, and more functional, whether those advances come from in-house R&D, acquisition, or integration with partners. But that doesn't mean competitors aren't trying. Juniper Networks, for example, recently announced a partnership with IBM and a Partner Solution Development Platform, a program that lets third parties integrate directly with its native operating system, JunOS, which runs on all of Juniper's router and switch hardware, via an API. Cisco is reportedly planning a similar integration program with APIs that can interact directly with IOS, but its numerous business units, variety of IOS versions, and multiplicity of hardware platforms means integration will likely be spotty at best. For example, Cisco has no plans to let third parties integrate with Cisco IOS XE, the version of IOS that runs on its new ASR 1000 routers.

That doesn't mean rivals haven't misstepped. Juniper made a big splash in January by announcing its EX-series enterprise switch line, and a number of analysts jumped the gun and predicted that Juniper would trump Cisco's lead in the market. But a deeper look at the EX feature set showed a me-too product that offered a few nice-to-have features that ultimately might not induce companies to switch.