This post is part of the Roadmap To The Future Series. Roadmap To The Future explores innovative industry trends and breakthroughs in science, entertainment, and technology. This series is sponsored by Verizon.
Big Switch
Kyle Forster, cofounder, Big Switch
A new
enterprise technology called
software-defined networking is still in its infancy. But it's already created some billion-dollar success stories, capturing the imagination of Silicon Valley's savviest investors and inventors.
Consider the $1.26 billion acquisition of Nicira by VMware last summer.
Or the $176 million acquisition of Contrail Systems by Juniper Networks last month, a mere two days after Contrail came out of stealth.
Software-defined networking, or SDN, changes the way companies build their IT networks. Instead of buying expensive routers and switches with a lot of fancy features from the likes of Cisco, companies can buy simpler, cheaper hardware, and less of it, and those fancy features are handled by a new layer of software.
SDN will continue to be a hot area for startups for years. The market is projected to grow from $360 million in 2013 to $3.7 billion by 2016, according to market researcher IDC.
This has led to a whole crop of startups ready to take on market leader Cisco and cash in.
