REDWOOD CITY, USA: A new report from Dell’Oro Group, a networking analyst firm, predicts that the worldwide Ethernet switch market will resume strong growth in 2011, after a steep decline of 20 percent in 2009.

As the global economic conditions improve and new product and new infrastructure investment cycles begin to ramp, thanks to growth in data centres and demands for 10GB Ethernet, the market will grow minimally in 2010, and then bounce back with double-digit growth rates from 2011 through 2013.

Dell’Oro Group predicts that the service provider router market will surpass $10 billion by 2013. 10 Gbps Ethernet LAN on Motherboard (LOM) shipments are forecast to surpass those of network adapter cards by the end of this year. The report, which provides a five-year market forecast, indicates that blade servers will be the catalyst for driving the initial ramp of LOMs, with rack and tower servers contributing to subsequent volumes.

Shin Umeda, VP, routers research, Dell’Oro Group, said: “There will be a number of technological advancements in the areas of router capacity and service delivery capabilities that will be the basis for a new industry investment cycle that should last several years.”

Seamus Crehan, VP, Dell’Oro Group, said: “Although blade server shipments are a small portion of overall server unit shipments, the volumes on this class of server as projected through 2011 are still large enough to drive 10 Gbps Ethernet LOM shipments above that of 10 Gbps Ethernet adapter card shipments.”