The staff, analysts, enterprise users and other industry watchers who voted on the list of 10 most powerful networking companies considered participation in standards, bodies, customer service, support and leadership, as well as market share and revenues. The perennial favorites that ranked high again are AT&T, Cisco Systems, IBM, Microsoft, Nortel Networks, Sun and WorldCom. But seeing as Nortel Networks is the preeminent supplier of optical network gear to service providers the company seems most likely to retain the top spot while holding off it's hungry rivals – Cisco included. Nortel Networks did, as expected, solidify its No. 1 position by spending $5 billion to acquire Xros and CoreTek, and spending $1.9 billion to more than double the production capacity for its components and systems. Cisco also faces the Nortel Networks obstacle in wireless. Nortel Networks' "Always On" initiative to marry its optical networking prowess with mobile wireless technology is also very impressive.