Vendors can upgrade products in the field, but that doesn't change the architectural DNA. Only products that are built with low TCO in mind will deliver the overall savings desired, and adopting technologies based on specialized, off the shelf silicon -- so-called merchant silicon -- is the first step along the path to realizing those returns.

In the 1990s enterprise network technology was evolving rapidly. To cope, many vendors delivered hardware-based innovation using custom ASICs. Merchant silicon wasn't available to deliver many key features.

ASICs are a natural fit in early-stage markets where standards are incomplete or non-existent, and where multiple approaches are battling for supremacy. The technology boom of the late 1990s was the golden age of ASICs. Many start-ups invested heavily in custom chip development, especially to build high-speed switch fabrics. New start-ups with negligible revenues could be sold for hundreds of millions of dollars if the acquiring company believed it was gaining access to leading-edge silicon designs.

The collapse of the tech bubble led to a significant decline in ASIC developments, but also saw the enterprise network market mature and merchant silicon grow tremendously in scale and sophistication. Today there is a rich variety of silicon sold commercially. For every major design need there are almost certain to be a number of sophisticated merchant chips available from different vendors.

Enterprise customers expect interoperable, standards-based, cost-effective network infrastructure solutions with value-add in software and system design. Merchant silicon provides this platform, the opposite of what proprietary chipsets deliver. Furthermore, merchant silicon enables vendors to deliver quality, low-cost, feature-rich products more quickly than ASIC updates can be delivered.