Lucent Technologies' move to acquire Riverstone Networks gives it a quick jump toward the front of the line in the carrier Ethernet equipment market. According to Infonetics Research, Riverstone was second only to Cisco Systems in the 2004 global carrier Ethernet equipment market--a market that could be worth $2.6 billion in 2008. The Riverstone acquisition trails nearly nine months behind ECI Telecom's like-minded acquisition of Laurel Networks and about 33 months behind Alcatel's fruitful acquisition of TiMetra.

All this pairing off makes one wonder, for example, whether the next shoe to drop will be an acquisition of Atrica by its big-brother partner, Fujitsu Network Communications. Or for that matter, what about a Fujitsu acquisition of its other Ethernet partner, Adva Optical Networking's U.S. division? Fujitsu has already rebranded Adva's gear as its own, but although it markets Adva's gear to existing networks, it has already sold a lot of Atrica gear in greenfield applications.

A little over three months ago, Infonetics' Michael Howard predicted a shake-up in the carrier Ethernet equipment space that would shuffle the pecking order of various vendors but leave the market leader, Cisco, undisturbed from its throne. While he described Alcatel and Atrica as "growing fast," Riverstone, he said, was "steady." It will be interesting to see what happens to the sales and market share of Riverstone gear now that it and Lucent are more than just "going steady."

Let me know what you think and why.

E-mail me at EGubbins@prismb2b.com.