Huawei, the cut-rate Chinese competitor , is formalizing its entry into the U.S. and global enterprise market. It's establishing a presence in Silicon Valley, and shifting over and recruiting 10,000 people to staff its new group - one of three main Huawei business units along with Devices and Telecom Infrastructure.

Karen Yu is president of Huawei's Enterprise business in the U.S. The company is recruiting channel partners to market its campus networking, branch access, IP backbone, data center and videoconferencing products.

Three product areas will be a key focus for the new group, however: LAN switches, access routers and telepresence, says John Roese, Huawei's senior vice president and general manager of North American R&D. Huawei, a $29 billion company, did $2 billion in enterprise business last year, but by formalizing its enterprise efforts and attacking the North American market in earnest, it's looking to at least double that this year, and more than triple that tally in 2012.

Cisco has dominated the enterprise networking market for a decade or more. Juniper entered the market in 2004 with its NetScreen firewall and VPN acquisition, and then with LAN switches in 2008, but its sales there have been flat of late. HP is the clear No. 2 in LAN switching behind Cisco, and doubled its market share by acquiring 3Com in 2009. But HP is still at about 10% market share, while Cisco enjoys 65% or more.

What makes Huawei different and why now?