For decades, the Gartner Magic Quadrant (MQ) has been considered the gold standard for enterprise IT decision tools. Given my role as an industry analyst, I like to review the MQs and see where I agree and disagree. Recently, Gartner released its MQ for Enterprise Wired and Wireless LAN, and the level at which I disagree with it surprised me. Frankly, this MQ should be tossed out the window and not used at all by IT pros due to its high level of inaccuracy.
The biggest issue I see with it is that the vendor positioning reflects old data. From what I understand, the information was collected from the vendors in December, and the document was published in late June 2025. In between the vendor submissions and release date, many of the vendors had their own user events and had significant product updates. This includes Extreme Connect, Cisco Live and HPE Discover as well as key industry events such as RSA and MWC. Given how fast AI is evolving and the flurry of announcements the industry saw over the first six months, the MQ would have been out of date in March and obsolete in June. Releasing something in late June based off December data is very backwards looking and does not align with Gartner’s view that the networking industry is moving faster than ever.
With that being said, let’s look at the vendors in the MQ.
Leaders
Juniper Networks 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.
HPE is in the correct quadrant, although I would argue based on the strength of announcements at Discover, 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.
Huawei should be a challenger and not a leader. With all the government money used to fund Huawei, there’s no question it has an excellent ability to execute. However, Huawei typically never leads the market; rather, it uses its massive resources to be a fast follower and compete on price, and there has never been anything visionary from the company. Also, Huawei has been embroiled in scandals surrounding kickbacks and payoffs, such as the recent EU lobbying and backdoor payments. I’m not sure how any vendor that needs to bribe its customers can be considered a “leader.”
Fortinet being in the leader quadrant may surprise some given they are best known as a security vendor, but the company has quietly built a broad and deep networking portfolio. I have no issue with them being considered a leader and believe for security conscious companies, Fortinet is a great option.
Challenger
Cisco 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 Cisco Live event, the company launched a salvo of innovation including AI Canvas, Cisco AI Assistant, 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
Arista Networks is much better known as a provider of high-performance data center equipment, but the company does offer a complete wired and wireless LAN portfolio. Given it’s still new to the campus, it’s position as a Visionary seem appropriate. Gartner cites its high-end enterprise positioning and an overweighting on North America for its install base as reasons why, and those seem like fair comments. My only issue with Arista’s placement is their “below the line” assessment of “Ability to Execute.” Based on stock price alone, there is arguably no network vendor that executes better than Arista. But any higher on this scale would make them a leader, which is where I predict they will be if Gartner issues this report next year.
Extreme Networks 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 Extreme Connect event in May of 2025, none of which was reflected in the report. One of the cautions cited states: “Extreme Networks lags in delivering coherent AI networking capabilities, such as AI assistants,” but Extreme has had co-pilot for some time. Also, this comment—“Extreme Networks’ marketing programs have not effectively reached Gartner clients, which affects market awareness”—seems self-serving on Gartner’s part. Not all enterprises use Gartner, but the research firm seems to indicate winning business outside of its base is somehow bad. In my conversations with education, airport and stadium operators, conference centers, retailers, healthcare and other organizations, no vendor does complicated networking better than Extreme, and that doesn’t seem to be reflected anywhere. One last point: Extreme is one of the few vendors with a shortest path bridging (SPB) Layer 2 fabric, and customers that have deployed it rave about its simplicity. This should be reflected somewhere in the report.
Meter and Nile debut as visionaries, and it was good to see a couple of new vendors make it in the MQ. Both are trying to disrupt the industries with a network-as-a-service (NaaS) offerings, and placing them in the visionary camp seems appropriate. Currently, the demand for customers wanting to buy networking as NaaS is limited, but if the trend broadens, Meter and Nile will be among the first to market and likely acquisition targets.
Niche player
The only Niche vendor worth calling out is Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise (ALE), 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.
Source:: Network World