How is Arista executing so well and Cisco doing just the opposite ? The market for networking equipment is not stagnant, otherwise Arista will also be down. So it comes to execution, innovation, keeping up with customer and market trends...
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Arista wins because they hardware is simple to understand, simple to install, simple to use. The simple Leaf-Spine ECMP architecture was started in a big way by Arista compared to complex fabrics, backplanes, etc.
The advantage of linux adds to the open architecture. Troubleshoot in Arista EOS, if you need to dig deeper jump into linux.
Arista started by techies, headed by technies, operated by techies and win revenue by top salesfolks. Honestly, no one in their right mind will actually buy Cisco gear on merit (capex and open are too high, arrogant salespeople, reliability is good but not great, customer service is still fantastic though).
Uhahaha…used car salesman. So true
They win cause they went after the best market, campus switching , easy vxlan deployments with good management software at a competitive price. Hard to kick them out even if you sell core DC , I dont fault anyone for buying them unless they want to buy all the way down the stack.
Arista has at least one person who understands the meaning of the word "architecture." Not only do they only have one OS, they only have one image for many products. This allows for standardized APIs for a management system to control. They're probably also smart enough not to have people from internally competing teams burst into customer meetings screaming lies, costing both teams major sales.
Cisco has four broken operating systems built from endless cut and pasting spread across a gazillion branches and they spend most of their development budget failing to fix all this. Cisco has endlessly different CLIs to do the same thing, sometimes even on the same image on the same box. It's from a culture which engineers used to call cowboys and managers used to call expediency. Cisco dug its own grave decades ago.
Arista products work. Their support is amazing. They don’t tell anyone they are a software company.
Active leadership, direct sales, no quota system. Enablement of sellers to own their territory rather than forcing sellers to sell a specific way or else. Oh, and actual technology innovation, not a nearly pure focus on DEI, ESG, and the ultra progressive social cause of the month.
Arista has a tech CEO vs our Used Car Salesman