Chapter 12

Business Ramifications

Abstract

There seems to be a growing consensus in the networking business community that SDN is here to stay and that its impact will be significant. This is supported by the sheer number of venture capital companies that have invested in SDN startups over the past six years, the magnitude of those investments, as well as the size of the acquisitions that have occurred since 2012 in this space. The big question from a business ramifications standpoint is whether or not there will be a sea-change in the relationship between vendors and customers, or will the degree of vendor-lock that the large NEMs enjoy today persist in a slightly modified form. Idealistic SDN proponents proselytize that the adoption of SDN will ...

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