Gartner has released their 2014 Magic Quadrant for Wired and Wireless LAN Infrastructure.  For the 3^rdyear in a row, Cisco is recognized as a leader in both vision and execution.  We believe this Gartner recognition is validation of Cisco strategy and investments for unified access, policy management and cloud managed solutions.

Cisco's position in the Wired and Wireless Gartner MQs has been consistent over the past 3 years as the market landscape has shifted we believe validating our commitment to meeting shifting customer priorities and requirements.

This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The complimentary copy of the Gartner document is available to view here.

The 2014Gartner Magic Quadrant for the Wired and Wireless LAN Access Infrastructure(Authors: Tim Zimmerman, Andrew Lerner, Bill Menezes; Published 26^thJune 2014) reflects the evolution from prior years and highlights what customers are looking for:

"With limited growth in IT resources, administrators require one network management application, one access security solution, one guest access application or one policy enforcement solution with the flexibility to be deployed in a public cloud, private cloud or on-premises. This integration reduces the costs associated with the upfront capital expense of multiple network service applications each dedicated to either the wired infrastructure or the wireless or cloud components. This savings is also extended to the ongoing software maintenance costs of all access layer management, security and policy enforcement components."

What Does Being a Leader Mean?

According to Gartner, 'a vendor in the Leaders quadrant will have demonstrated an ability to fulfill a broad variety of customer requirements through the breadth of their access layer product family. Leaders will have the ability to shape the market and provide complete and differentiating access layer applications, as well as global service and support. Leaders should have demonstrated the ability to shape the market, maintain strong relationships with their channels and customers, and have no obvious gaps in their portfolios.'

Cisco's Unified Access solution directly addresses today's customer priorities with deployment options a variety of customer segments ranging from large enterprises to mid-size companies to organizations with broad IT expertise to organizations with lean IT staffs. In a recent press release Sujai Hajela, senior vice president of Cisco Enterprise Networking gives his thoughts on why Cisco has remained in the Gartner Magic Quadrant Leaders quadrant for three years.

Cisco has taken a customer-centric approach in order to meet the needs of enterprise organizations.  For those looking for a cloud-based approach, we offer the Cisco Meraki solutions.  For those who prefer the on-premise managed approach, Cisco continues to build on our traditional Unified Access Solution.

The Cisco Approach   

Cisco recognizes that not every IT organization is created equal, and we have developed solutions that align to whatever operation model those IT organizations feel will help them propel their business to the next level. Within both our cloud-managed and on-premise managed solutions the fundamental need to improve agility, simplify operations and deliver a high-quality user experience is inherent in both deployment models. I think this is what has helped Cisco stay in the Leaders Quadrant since the Gartner Wired and Wireless LAN Magic Quadrant has been introduced three years ago.
Overall, Gartner's view is one that we feel Cisco shares with our 'One Policy, One Management, One Network' vision. First introduced in 2012, Cisco has delivered and expanded upon this vision for the last three years to help our customers achieve their business goals and simplify IT while addressing the rapid growth of BYOD, Mobility and the evolution toward the Internet of Everything.

To learn more:

• Please click here for a complimentary copy of the full research note from Gartner
• Please click here to read the Cisco Press Release