In an interview with ZDNet Asia, Mark Fabbi, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner, said the network landscape has changed from a seller’s market dominated by Cisco for ten years, a more competitive environment as the current town with more players. Headquartered in Toronto Fabbi made the remarks at a press conference hosted by Hewlett-Packard last week.
“If you look back over the last decade, Cisco really set the terms and conditions of the market,” said Gartner analyst. “It was the one that provides the messages and addresses in the market and pricing-points in the market for both equipment and services.”
The landscape, however, has changed in recent years with “a real viable competition” from the sellers will have large purses and a good service and support, he said. Hewlett-Packard with the acquisition of 3Com and move in the business sector, and efforts to accelerate their technology and capabilities are among the rival Cisco now faces, he added.
Instead of default Cisco, said that companies must Fabbi list of products from other suppliers and build a better network and save money. “No other vendor, no matter who they are, is the best at everything.”
– Mark Fabbi
Gartner
He noted that some IT organizations are not willing to consider alternatives, because sellers are comfortable with the current system or that it is too difficult to change partners. However, the latter is a perception than a reality, the analyst said.
Cisco, however, remained unperturbed.
In an email interview with ZDNet Asia, a Cisco spokeswoman said the company “has always enjoyed a healthy competition in the networking market.” This is no different now, he added.
“Customers have always spoken with their wallets,” she said, noting that Cisco remains the provider with the largest market share worldwide for managed change, the company’s routing and network security based on the results of Dell ‘Golden
Benefits from different vendors
According to Fabbi, a benefit of supply of products from other suppliers is that companies are able to build a better network – one built to meet the requirements of the company.
“No other vendor, no matter who they are, is the best at everything,” he said. “Companies must begin to respond,” Why buy this technology? What problems is the solution? If I look at other providers?
Economic pressures have also led companies to providers of alternative list, instead of Cisco, to load the equipment, he added. That said, companies should not use price as a determining factor for change providers, he added.
“Saving money is good, but [there is] not the main reason for the company to find and compare vendors,” Fabbi said.
Instead, organizations must ensure that the network he built is the right size for the company.
“In some cases, you may be spending more money in some places and less in others,” he said. “On analysis, it can make the right decision.”
Contrary to the perception that customers are locked into the technologies owned by Cisco, said the lack Fabbi giant networks of integration among its acquired products makes it easier for competitors to “infiltrate and sell parts of the infrastructure Cisco. ”
“Cisco grew by acquisition,” he said. “Despite the fact that it sells a lot of things, operationally, [products] all look and behave a little differently.” Citing Cisco Catalyst family of switches and Nexus as an example, Fabbi said: “A network of Cisco is another multi-vendor network [built] with [products] Juniper Networks, HP, F5 Networks or other supplier” .
He added that there are some elements in Cisco products, such as Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP), which “is still trying to maintain the capabilities of property [although there are industry] standards.” Customers who want to choose and the opening can, as a result, turn to other suppliers, he said.
Cisco: innovation key ingredient
In response to this observation, the spokesman for Cisco said the company “has been systematically pursuing a standards-based approach to innovation” – in the case of products from the Cisco Catalyst Nexus line or family, or your approach architecture “borderless networks and unified fabric in the data center.”
Cisco added that mail from your competition, “leader in innovation.” “Cisco is focused on innovation and solving customer problems. We let our customers decide what is best for their business,” he said.
To boost innovation in its product, the networking company spends more than 10 percent of its revenue on research and development, he said, adding that the company spent last year U.S. $ 5,300,000,000 in product development.