The biggest players on the network, presented for your consideration.
Apple
Unless you’re using massive amounts of AirPorts in a role they were not meant to fulfill, Apple probably isn’t a vendor you deal with directly in your daily networking activities. However, it’s probably the company most responsible for the headaches associated with consumerization, and it’s likely going to stay that way as long as workers continue to buy iPhones and iPads. Which, obviously, they are – Apple said that it sold 33.8 million iPhones in the last quarter alone, and the holiday season is upon us.
Aruba
Image by Glassdoor.com
So wait a second, who uses wireless LAN, anyway? Oh, that’s right – everybody. So would that mean one of the biggest makers of wireless networking gear – rated as a leader in the field by both Gartner and IDC – is a pretty important company, in the grand scheme of things? Yes. Aruba isn’t resting on its laurels, either, having introduced a new cloud-centric management service in its latest generation of access points last month and posted record quarterly revenues of $160 million last month.
CA
Image by Americasroof/CC License/Wikimedia Commons
CA is a fixture in the management of networks specifically and enterprise IT in general. The company’s latest financials show its profits, particularly from its services, on the rise. CA’s $4.6 billion in revenues last year should help put the scale of the company in perspective.
F5
Image by Glassdoor.com
F5 is a specialist, accounting for more than 55% of the fast-growing application delivery controller market on its own, according to an analysis from Trefis. F5’s Synthesis product, however, is an indication that the company has greater ambitions, with saying it goes a long way toward answering the question of where ADCs fit into an increasingly software-defined data center network.
Microsoft
Image by Wikimedia Commons/Public domain/Dcoetzee
Microsoft might not make the networking gear that keeps companies running, but its software – from Windows to Exchange to Office – is one of the primary traffic payloads that the network has to support. What’s more, the company’s Azure IaaS offering is quickly becoming a major competitor to market leader and the rapid growth in Windows Phone adoption – IDC recently reported 156% year-on-year growth in – could make it an increasingly important factor in BYOD.
Image by Austin McKinley/CC License/Wikipedia
Google’s impact on the enterprise network is, in general, an indirect one, but the company’s influence is felt in a host of different ways. Android OS continues to be a central part of the BYOD phenomenon, Google Apps boasts a small but growing user base, and Google Fiber – though far from widespread – offers tantalizing vistas of the future to businesses. What’s more, the company’s Cloud Platform is quickly becoming a strong competitor to Amazon, outperforming EC2 by a factor of four in network latency and a factor of 20 in bandwidth in tests run by Scalr earlier this year.
Email Jon Gold at jgold@nww.com and follow him on Twitter at @NWWJonGold.
