前高管反省思科成功之道

    我认为他们是一个非常强硬的竞争对手，他们在巩固市场地位方面做得非常出色。思科依然拥有非常庞大的市场份额。我觉得，它的市场份额高得有些离谱。思科在交换机和数据中心市场的占有率在50%到70%之间。我们跟思科不同，我们并没有涉足整个交换机市场。阿里斯塔专攻数据中心和云计算领域。但我想，我以后可能会回过头来对你说，没有哪个市场是永远存在的。所有的市场都有成熟的一天。让思科感到兴奋的是，它拥有一些足够强悍，足以让他们保持灵敏度的竞争对手。当然，阿里斯塔就是一个例证。

    于阿里斯塔而言，最令人兴奋的事情莫过于，我们的成功不必以思科的失败为前提，反之亦然。现有的市场非常大，足以确保我们和思科实现双赢，根本没必要挖对方的墙脚。所以，在我看来，客户们正在寻求一种替代方案。与思科一起成长起来的更为保守的客户当然还会继续使用传统的思科企业级产品。就像你不会因为购买IBM的服务而被解雇一样，你也不会因购买思科产品而被炒鱿鱼。而那些并非传统的技术客户群体首先会选择阿里斯塔。他们可能会来的晚一点。

    我们的产品还处于早期应用阶段，选择我们的客户确实希望建立开放的现代网络，而且知道他们需要一个多厂商解决方案。

    要记住，现在的确是一个引爆点时刻，因为数据中心市场目前的价值预计为30亿或40亿美元。在接下来的3年，它的价值理应会达到100亿美元。有些人甚至认为会达到160亿美元。但为了谨慎起见，让我们取最低的预测值。所以，我们是这样看待这个市场的：哪怕思科占据了一半甚或70%的份额——因为这就是这个市场的现状，即使最好的技术人员还是会遵循旧习惯的——我们认为市场依然足够大，机会多多，很多客户都想要第二家供应商。由于我们从来没有开发过企业级产品，我们可以从一张白纸开始，而且只提供这些新东西。思科的实力源自其厚重的底蕴，阿里斯塔的实力源自新奇的创新。

    我们非常尊敬思科公司，事实上，我认为我们的方式迥然不同。由于我曾经参与过企业级产品的开发过程，我绝不会采用传统方式跟思科在这个市场上展开正面竞争。这样做没有任何意义。它需要花费我15年时间，还需要一支15,000人的工程师队伍。这绝不是成功的诀窍。（财富中文网）

    译者：叶寒

    I think they're a very tough competitor, and I think they're doing a fine job of holding their own. Cisco still has very large market share. I would argue almost unnaturally high market share. It's somewhere between 50% and 70% of the switching and datacenter market. We don't participate in the entire switching market that Cisco has. Arista is only focused on the data center and the cloud piece of it. But I guess I would come back to you and say that no market is forever. All markets mature and what's exciting for Cisco is to have some tough competitors that keep them nimble, and certainly, Arista's an example of that.

    But what's most exciting for Arista is we don't have to succeed because Cisco fails or vice versa. The market, the total available market, is so large that we both can succeed without Peter robbing Paul, or whatever. So in my view customers are looking for an alternative. The more conservative customers who have grown up with Cisco in their traditional enterprises certainly will stay with Cisco. Just like you don't get fired for buying IBM, you won't get fired for buying Cisco, and those are not the traditional technical customer community that comes to Arista first. They might come later.

    We're very much in the early adopter phase where the ones who come to us are the ones who are really looking to build this open modern network and know they need a multi-vendor solution to that.

    It's really a tipping point moment because remember, the data center market right now is anticipated to be around $3 billion or $4 billion. And in the next three years, it's supposed to get to $10 billion. Some even say $16 billion. But let's take the low-end of this. So, the way we look at it is even if you say half or 70% of Cisco, because that's the way life goes, even with the best technology people will go with old habits. We think that there is enough market, enough opportunity and enough customers who want a second vendor. And because we don't have the legacy of having built an enterprise, we could start with a clean sheet of paper and only offer that. Cisco will come from their strength of legacy and Arista will come from its strength of novelty.

    We have a great deal of respect for the company and in fact I think our approaches are entirely different. Since I helped build the enterprise, I would never compete with Cisco directly in the enterprise in a conventional way. It makes no sense. It would take me 15 years and 15,000 engineers, and that's not a recipe for success.