Enterasys Positioned as a “Visionary”
I am pleased to announce that Enterasys was recently positioned in the visionaries quadrant in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Campus LAN (Global) 2008 report published by Gartner VP & Distinguished Analyst, Mark Fabbi. This means Enterasys meets the leading analyst firm’s criteria for delivering enterprise-class solutions for LAN infrastructure to the global market.
Gartner lists the following “strengths” about Enterasys in the vendor summary:
- Strong Technology: “Enterasys has the most tightly integrated security capabilities of any LAN switch vendor, including strong support for all IP telephony offerings.”
- Successful Business Execution: “This vendor has successfully made the transition from a public to a privately owned company, has solidified its installed base and is starting to show the ability to win new customer accounts.”
- Competitive Pricing: “It has migrated from often premium-priced offerings to a more competitive, but still feature-rich solution.”
- Very Strong Support: “Enterasys provides very strong service capabilities. Long-term and new customers cite customer support as a differentiator.”
In addition to being positioned as a “Visionary”, no other vendor improved more positively than Enterasys. The report highlights that Enterasys has strong technology, successful business execution, competitive pricing and very strong support – positive confirmation of our company strengths. The report also confirms that our solutions align perfectly with Gartner’s four key drivers for any network upgrade:
- ”Support for an open, standards-based platform for convergence applications”
- ”Ability to embed security in the LAN infrastructure”
- ”Support for increasingly large, scalable data centers”
- ”Ability to drive innovation to support a long-lived, cost-effective infrastructure”
The report also supports my firm belief that capital savings can result from competing the LAN business between multiple vendors as no operational advantage to a single vendor approach has been independently documented. Gartner encourages enterprises to evaluate alternative vendors competitively to drive cost-efficiency and better manageability:
- “Every vendor in the Gartner 2008 Campus LAN (Global) Magic Quadrant provides viable, well supported LAN infrastructures for mainstream requirements.”
- “Vendor viability comes up in many discussions…However, there is no significant risk with any of the top seven vendors in this market.”
- “Major LAN purchases and upgrades should not take place without a full competitive review…It is imperative that enterprises evaluate competitive offerings to ensure that they balance required features with the total cost of ownership for the anticipated five-to-seven-year life span of new switches.”
- “Cost should be an elemental consideration when looking at LAN infrastructure…A significant percentage of the market should be looking for more cost-effective, easier-to-manage solutions for their infrastructure.”
These points reinforce the idea that the market is looking for a credible alternative to Cisco. Our goal is to be that credible alternative by listening to our customers, delivering on our promises, and earning the right to their business every day.
This report is great news for Enterasys and demonstrates that we are making great strides in our quest to become your favorite vendor. I would like to encourage you to schedule a 30-minute phone call with Gartner analyst, Mark Fabbi, so he can share with you his most up-to-date perceptions on all the vendors included in the report. Gartner clients can schedule a meeting by calling + 1 203 316 1200 or sending an email to inquiry@gartner.com.