For decades, the is accurately placed. The company acquired Mist, arguably the first AI networking company, and since then has built its campus strategy around it. Juniper has done a great job of adding to Mist with the release of Marvis Mini’s, agentic AI and digital twins and remains the frontrunner in AI networking.
, it could have been moved up in vision. The company announced AIOps enhancements, agentic AI mesh, AI inferencing at the edge, new security, and much more.
. I’m not sure how any vendor that needs to bribe its customers can be considered a “leader.”
is the only company listed as a challenger, and its movement out of the leader quadrant highlights just how inaccurate this document is. There is no vendor that sells more networking equipment in more places than Cisco, and it has led enterprise networking for decades. Several years ago, when it was a leader, I could argue the division of engineering between Meraki and Catalyst could have pushed them out, but it didn’t. So why now?
At its June , and much more. It’s also continually improved the interoperability between Meraki and Catalyst and announced several new products. AI Canvas is a completely new take, was well received by customers at Cisco Live, and reinvents the concept of AIOps. As I stated above, because of the December cutoff time for information gathering, none of this was included, but that makes Cisco’s representation false.
Also, I find this MQ very vague in its “Cautions” segment. As an example, it states: “Cisco’s product strategy isn’t well-aligned with key enterprise needs.” Some details here would be helpful. In my conversations with Cisco, which includes with Chief Product Officer and President Jeetu Patel, the company has reiterated that its strategy is to help customers be AI-ready with products that are easier to deploy and manage, more automated, and with a lower cost to run. That seems well-aligned with customer needs. If Gartner is hearing customers want networks that are more complex, that’s something that should be called out.
One last comment: The feeling that Cisco is misplaced has been shared with me by competitors of the company. One competing executive told me that having the company with the dominant share Cisco has *not* be a leader would be like issuing a report on trucks and not having the Ford F150 as a leader. If the company is, by far, the best-selling vendor of all time, not having it be a leader puts the entire document in question. One may not like the company or disagree with it, but its strategy is obviously working.
Visionaries
drops from Leader to Visionary, and I believe is a victim of timing. The company announced Extreme Platform ONE, which includes a wide range of new features and enhancements, at its and , which, along with Extreme, offers an SPB based fabric. While the company isn’t that well-known in North America, it does have presence in parts of Europe and other parts of the world. It does particularly well with customers that have brought OT and IT together. Niche is where it belongs and with slightly better execution could move into the challenger area.
Wrapping up
As an outside observer, I’ve often found that Gartner is more focused on being provocative than accurate. Buying the market leader, not just in networking but in all markets, is often the simple choice. But if that’s the right answer, then what value is Gartner providing?
Two last points:
The gap in time from data collection to publishing is a well-known problem. With AI having reared its head, in almost every technology segment, the pace of innovation has accelerated. If this truly is a bottleneck for Gartner, then the company needs a better way of creating these MQs. If there were an MQ of decision tools, Gartner would have long fallen out of the leader quadrant because it hasn’t reinvented itself in a very long time.
As an industry analyst, my clients include IT professionals and vendors, some of which are mentioned above. My opinions about the accuracy of the MQ are driven by my knowledge of the market, not by my client relationships. No vendor paid for or influenced the writing of this article.
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