Microsoft may have just landed a death blow to the emerging data center interconnect (DCI) systems market, after developing an alternative to dedicated DCI boxes in partnership with little-known Inphi Corp., a vendor of optical components.

These developments were revealed in an exclusive report by Light Reading, citing comments from Tom Issenhuth, Optical Network Architect of Azure Networking at Microsoft, at the OSA Executive Forum on Monday.

According to Issenhuth, Microsoft no longer needs DCI boxes for its “sweet spot” of less than 80km inter-data center links, because its developed a new module alongside Inphi that connects directly with data center switches. This eliminates Microsoft’s need for DCI boxes, despite it being one of the biggest potential buyers of such hardware.

The “module” in question is described by Light Reading as “a 100Gbit/s QSFP28 DWDM module” that plugs directly into data center switches made by companies like Cisco Systems Ltd. and Arista Networks Inc., and was demonstrated at the OFC show in Anaheim yesterday.

The news will be particularly distressing to several major vendors of dedicated DCI boxes, including ADVA Optical Networking, Fujitsu Network Communications Inc., and Juniper Networks Inc., all of whom have dedicated considerable time and research efforts into the possibly soon-to-be-obsolete technology.

“This has potentially huge implications for the purpose-built DCI box vendors,” stated Heavy Reading senior analyst Sterling Perrin. “They have built their products primarily for the Webscale companies, but Microsoft is essentially saying they don’t need them, at least over these distances [80km or less].

The big worry of course is that other major customers, such as Google and Facebook, could both follow Microsoft and start developing or buying their own similar modules. If so, that could well strangle the nascent DCI box market before it really gets going.

“If it works for us, it should work for them too,” Issenhuth told Light Reading.

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