How useful is Porter's Five Forces approach to understanding the new entrants into the router market in the late 1990's?

Introduction In the mid 1990's, Cisco Systems (Cisco) was the dominant player in the US router market. Cisco had steadily expanded since its inception in 1984 and serviced internet service providers, phone companies and major corporations. Its "leadership was undisputed." This position of leadership was altered with the entry of several new competitors into the high performance segment of the router market. In particular, Juniper emerged as a serious threat to Cisco by the year 2000. The …

…router market. An identification of the success factors of these firms (e.g. Juniper's management team) would also illuminate their decision to compete in this industry. Therefore, we view Porter's model as a useful starting point in understanding the new entrants into the router market in the late 1990's, but consider that a fuller understanding would be gained from considering the dynamic nature of the industry and analysing strategy and competition at the business level.