There is no shortage of vendors competing for business at every part of the enterprise network – every vertical, every size business, from the edge to the core. None are created equal, but a few have separated themselves from the pack to become the 10 most powerful.
This is Network World’s understanding of the most powerful enterprise networking companies, which we based on our own research, consultations with trusted industry analysts and the work of our in-house journalists. For our purposes, we thought of power mostly as market share in key areas of the enterprise networking marketplace – specifically core networking, monitoring and management, WLAN and the edge, though we did consider their technology bases and important market factors as well. Enjoy.
Why they’re here: It was ever thus – Cisco remains the biggest single player in enterprise networking, and it’s not particularly close. The company offers one-stop shopping for almost anything you could need for your network and ensures that its products play nicely with each other.
Sure, they might not play so nicely with other people’s gear, and some of the price tags might make your eyes water, but Cisco continues to have a strong, reliable technology base and is the company to beat in the most important areas of enterprise networking.
Recent power moves: Earlier in 2017, Cisco snapped up data science and analytics firm Saggeza, SD-WAN player Viptela, and won a legal battle with rival Arista over a patent lawsuit.
By the numbers: 60 – Cisco maintains a 60% market share in the routing and switching market, according to the most recent numbers from IDC.
Outlook: Cisco has challengers on many fronts, some of which address their particular parts of the network more effectively than Cisco does. But nobody can claim to offer the same breadth of solutions as enterprise networking’s 800-pound gorilla, and the future is still pretty bright for Cisco.
Why they’re here: Aruba is the biggest name that isn’t named Cisco in the wireless LAN space, and the only other company to occupy the “leaders” section of Gartner Research’s latest Magic Quadrant report for wired and wireless LAN infrastructure.
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