Processing .....please wait.. 
The article has been forwarded.... 
Arista: a challenge to Cisco?
By siliconindia
|
Monday, 12 October 2009, 18:58 IST
Bangalore: Arista Networks with its superfast networking gear plans to undercut market leader, Cisco and its aggressive growth plans. According to its Founder, Andreas Bechtolsheim, Arista Networks has an edge in cost and performance in the fastest-growing part of the market: blazing-fast gear for the datacenters where more and more computing is done, reports Business Week.
"We're just a fly in the ointment to Cisco today," says Bechtolsheim. "But it's very hard for large companies to change their fundamental business models." Arista's switches, computers that direct traffic around the Internet, are less than half the price of comparable Cisco products.
Lane Patterson, Chief Technology Officer of datacenter company Equinix, says that Arista's equipment can be one fifth the cost, "a phenomenally compelling price." Its gear also runs on cutting-edge software that analysts say has advantages over Cisco's 20 year old software, IOS, which is as prevalent in networking as Microsoft's Windows is in personal computing. Arista's software has the potential to run more kinds of programs and won't crash if one gets a bug.
However, the networking giant isn't showing any sign of vulnerability. In fact, its hold on the networking market is so complete it's branching out into dozens of new markets, from video to wireless technology. Competition is increasingly from tech giants, particularly Hewlett-Packard (HPQ). Although Cisco declined to comment on Arista, it pointed out that while it has 1,000 customers for its datacenter products, Arista has only 130.
Still, Arista is getting traction. The company has a broad clientele only two years after introducing its first product and a third of its customers are big Wall Street firms looking for faster computing systems and speedier execution of trades. Ironically, Bechtolsheim has hired Jayshree Ullal, former architect of Cisco's own data-center effort to head his company. "Arista is doing very well," says Pacific Crest Securities Analyst, Brent Bracelin. "Clearly there's a strong appetite for alternatives to Cisco."
