Anticipating Interop and network intelligence
There used to be a debate in the networking industry around network intelligence. One camp favored the "fast/dumb" network with extremely limited additional intelligence. The other pushed for added processing power as a way to off-load server tasks.
This theoretical dispute still lingers to some extent. There will always be networking hot-rodders like Force10 and Juniper who figure out ways to move packets faster than everyone else, but on balance the argument is moot--Moore's law tipped the scales toward the network intelligentsia.
I expect network intelligence to be the dominant theme at this week's Interop show in Las Vegas. It may be subtle but its definitely there. Security companies will talk about cracking packets to identify threats, encrypt bits, or block data leakage. The WAN optimization crowd will discuss manipulating protocols and caching files, Application layer guys crow about XML parsing, XSLT transformation, and business logic. It's all about stuffing networking gear with fat microprocessors to perform one task or another.
The problem now is that we are cracking packets all over the place. You can't send an e-mail, IM, or ping a router without some type of intelligent manipulation along the way.
I predict that the next bit wave in this evolution will be known as COPM for "Crack once, process many." In this model, IP packets are stopped and inspected and then all kinds of security, acceleration, and application logic actions occur. Seems like a more efficient model to me.
So now that I've written this, I can't wait to see if anyone at Interop will grab me for a briefing on their COPM architecture. Maybe the network will be so smart that it will off-load human intervention and begin pitching me on its own.
Jon Oltsik is a senior analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group. He is not an employee of CNET. 
I guess it depends on where you look, but some would say this is already happening... and has been for a long time depending on context.
For example If you were actually able look inside a Cisco integrated services router while the packet is being processed, you would see that the packet is placed into a stack in memory, a pointer is created, this is then used (the majority of the time) by the various functions required by the router ,including routing decisions, security policy, etc... Now with the addition of things like WAAS and AON modules in the router the application acceleration and application handling are performed also inside the router.
I guess it depends on where you define boundary for where the "process many" is happening... If you are talking separate vendors with multiple operating systems and physical chassis then I can definitely see your point, but given IP is the common 'interop' language it's hard to see how this will be achieved easily