Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) Deutsche Bank's 2023 Technology Conference August 31, 2023 11:45 AM ET

Company Participants

Martin Hull - VP, Cloud and Platform Product Management

Liz Stine - Head of IR

Conference Call Participants

Matthew Niknam - Deutsche Bank

Matthew Niknam

All right. If everybody can go ahead and - please take your seats. We're going to go ahead and get started with our next session. We are very pleased to have Arista's VP of Cloud and Platform Product Management, Martin Hull, who is joining us. We also have Liz Stine, who runs IR here with us as well. And for those of you who don't know me, I'm Matt Niknam, the networking analyst here at Deutsche Bank. So thanks, Martin, and thanks Liz for joining us?

Martin Hull

Thank you.

Matthew Niknam

So maybe just to start, Martin, maybe for the benefit of everyone here in the room, can you tell us a bit about your history at Arista, and what you're responsible for in your current role?

Martin Hull

Absolutely. So I've got an interesting role at Arista, I'll come to that in just a moment. I've been at Arista for little bit over 12 years, before that I spent a similar amount of time at the other place, Cisco. And before that I got started in networking, back when mainframes walked the earth and so, I've been doing networking for a while. At Arista, I currently run the platform product management team.

So, everything that comes out of Arista in a grey metal box is basically my responsibility. And I also have responsibility for the cloud titan sales quota, and the systems engineering team that works for those same customers. So, I've got a broad role.

Question-and-Answer Session

Q - Matthew Niknam

So why don't we jump right into that. Let's start with cloud titans, obviously, very, very topical. Maybe just to start, if you could talk about what you're seeing from your cloud titan customers right now in terms of underlying demand, and whether maybe a sharpened focus, we hear so much about AI-related spend, is that largely been neutralized by deferred spend elsewhere?

Martin Hull

There's a lot more packages in there.

Matthew Niknam

Yes.

Martin Hull

So, we have multiyear relationships with the cloud titans, two of whom are our biggest customers. But we sell to the cloud sector, not everybody is in the cloud titan group, but we have a broad set of customers in that cloud market. So, is there a sharpened focus on AI? Absolutely. How we wouldn't be sitting in this room asking me AI questions, if there wasn't. But we've been working with these customers say for many years.

So, the deployments that we're going through at the moment are largely in what we call the front-end network, the IP and the Ethernet space. But it also extends out to the data center interconnect, the wide area networks, and many other parts like colo, their transport networks. Those deployments have to continue. They can't hit the brakes. They can potentially choose to increase CapEx on the AI back-end and that might have a change in focus.

But over the long run, it has to continue spending on all the other parts of the IP network, right? The IP network is how they deliver their services to their customers, whoever they are, whether it's a software-as-a-service cloud, whether it's media and entertainment cloud, whether it's a productivity cloud, everybody has to deliver that service.

The AI is part of it, is how they're going to underpin the next-generation solutions. They still have to have delivery, transport, customer connections, and that's all the part that we’re interested in. What was the part I didn't answer there?

Matthew Niknam

You did not. There are a lot of soft parts to that question.

Martin Hull

I think I got that.

Matthew Niknam

But I started with - the cloud side. But as we maybe just to stay with cloud titans for a sec. Are you seeing any impacts from a lower macro backdrop, elevated interest rates, is that weighing on sales cycles or customer decision-making processes in the cloud titans?

Martin Hull

Yes. I don't think that they are necessarily exposed to increased interest rates, parts of that business that we get involved in, where networking is a relatively small part of these companies CapEx. So, I'm not seeing any change based on the macro there. And we saw customers in August now, nearly September. Earlier in the year, we clearly saw a couple of those large companies doing cutbacks in terms of headcount, right?

That's in response to maybe then making overcorrection earlier in the pandemic, those sorts of things we've got no control over, absolutely, right? But when they want network infrastructure, when they want to build out next-generation solutions, then they're going to be having conversations with us about that. Macro, I'm sure that plays a lot into that thinking long-term, but we don't see that short-term I guess.

Matthew Niknam

Just maybe while we're on the topic of macro, as it relates to enterprise, obviously, you've been a pretty share gainer, is the - maybe a tougher macro broadly or even the topic of rates maybe as you think about enterprise base, has that impacted the pace at which maybe you were able to take share from incumbents?

Martin Hull

Yes. So there's probably two or three aspects to that, and that is as you say, we are a net share gainer. So it will always be difficult to look in the rearview mirror and say, could we have done more or less, or was that to shape in an economic backdrop, difficult to say. We continue to be that net share gainer. If you then go into those conversations with the customers, if the customer on the left is saying not this year.

While the customer on the right is opening the door to you, we still got those opportunities ahead of us. When we get deeper into the engagements, you do then tend to find that - to make sure that you can move that deal to completion, you got to make sure you have all your signatures signed off all the way up. And as long as we're doing our piece, to make sure that we can get all the technical sign-offs or the business sign-offs and then finance the legal will get in the way, contracts, perhaps taking a bit longer to get closed out. But we're not seeing a slowdown in our ability to grow our business there. But that's difficult to say, could it be more, you can't have a tell.

Matthew Niknam

And just maybe to close out on the topic of cloud titans, by the way, just for everybody in the room, I will pause maybe 15 minutes left for any audience Q&A as well. You obviously have two very large cloud titan customers, M&M, Microsoft and Meta for those who don't know.

Martin Hull

Meta and Microsoft [indiscernible].

Matthew Niknam

I was going by market cap, but yes, maybe. Is there any discernible difference in terms of their spending patterns, the priorities that you see from them?

Martin Hull

Yes. So if you even walk outside the M&M's to other markets, what we find interesting is every one of them is trying to solve the same problem, and they will come up with a completely different way of solving that problem. Okay, we've got a product portfolio that can fit into whatever use case they have for it. So, yes, they definitely deploy the technology in different ways.

You've also got to think about what it is that they are as the fundamental business, right? I think we all understand what Meta is and what Meta does. Is Microsoft their competitor? Not really, it's a completely different set of business services. So, they have fundamentally different businesses. They just happen to be very, very large deployers of cloud infrastructure. So that's - we sell similar products to them, and they use them in different ways.

Matthew Niknam

Maybe, let's hit supply-chain, that's obviously been very topical over the better part of the last four, six, eight quarters, what's the latest you're seeing on the supply-chain front now?

Martin Hull

So, it's been going on for more than eight quarters. And I still live supply-chain challenges effectively, day in and day out. But not to say that most of the problems aren't in the rearview mirror, but we are by no means back to normal. The standard lead time for components that used to be easy to get hold of are still extended. So, we have to plan in longer cycles.

We then ask our customers to work with us to plan in those longer cycles. We do expect by the end of this calendar year, that we'll get back to more of a normal period. But in some ways, I don't think we're getting back to normal, and some of these lead times are just going to stay long for I don't know how long. We've never seen this in the 30 years, I've been doing it, Jayshree's been doing even longer.

None of us in this industry have seen this kind of scenario play out. I think, it got certainly a few more years to get back to normal, if we have to get there. But most of the challenges are behind us, and we understand where we are now. We just have to have better business planning, short-term, medium-term, and long-term.

Matthew Niknam

Is there may be easing or moderation relative to peak supply-chain headwinds, we may have seen not too long ago, was that impacting customer decision-making behavior across the base?

Martin Hull

It has to impact the customer decision when they - we have these multiyear relationships. So, we're talking to our customers about not what they want this week or next week or next month, we're talking to them about their decisions that they're going to make in a year's time. It's the components that they need to have inside the systems, we're going to deliver in the next-generation product around a 52-week lead-time.

You better tell us tomorrow. And realistically some of these components are that we work with them are those orders. No, these are strategic directions that we're all working together in hand-in-hand. So those relationships allow us to partner. So that has to change how they think about working with us. They can't keep their decisions hidden behind the table. They have to help us, so that we can help them.

Matthew Niknam

It is relative, if we think about lead times, I know in the past, I’ve heard Jayshree and Ita maybe quantify some of the lead times across different customers, that's where they peaked, where they expect to normalize, if you can maybe refresh us on that as well?

Martin Hull

For product?

Matthew Niknam

Yes.

Martin Hull

So, we have managed to reduce the lead times on a subset of products. And so, the typical enterprise customer is more able to get hold of what they need, because they can't plan in those year and multiyear cycles, and their buildouts don't last as long. So, we reduced lead times on a number of those products that are key to them, and then we continue to work with the larger customers on trying to get visibility into longer-term planning, say not committed orders necessarily, but just trends and directions. So, we're still working on the business as a one-year plus horizon.

Matthew Niknam

I kind of go back to AI. Obviously, I can't let you go. I asked one question, but I got to go back to it, because obviously it's a huge focus. From a very, very high level, how big of an opportunity can this be for Arista, maybe from an addressable market or addressable opportunity perspective?

Martin Hull

So it's not really for us to necessarily try and sum all of that up. I know a lot of the industry analysts have looked at it, and they come up with a number of two to three.

Liz Stine

Two to seven….

Martin Hull

Yes, two to seven, two to three depends on what horizon you look at. It depends on what you want to group into there, what you don't want a group into there. Lot of the Ethernet technology that will sell into a cloud could be deployed and in AI environment, and not in AI environment, you try and work out where it got. So, it's challenging at best. It's definitely an incremental TAM and that there's more CapEx going into that area.

And then there's the debate of how much of that is going to be an Ethernet-based technology and multi-vendor, and how much of it is going to be a proprietary InfiniBand technology, what that ratio is, how fast it changes. And then, you still got to come back to the underlying how fast will this go. Jayshree said it, we're still in some very early phases here. I know the hype cycle is pretty high at the moment.

And so, all these questions on AI, and I totally understand that. But we're still waiting for next-generation silicon on the GPU side, waiting the next-generation silicon on the networking side, and as each one of those iterations happened, I think there's going to be a function of step-in terms of how much you can deploy, and we've barely scratched the surface, right?

AI getting deployed in some of these high-profile environments, and the stores we see about what they can do, when you trying to take and SAT, you're going to get a perfect score from now on. But you think about how you can apply AI to healthcare, fintech, pharmaceutical research, all these areas where AI can be deployed for the good, not saying that getting a perfect score and SAT isn't good, it's not maybe quite as helpful.

So, there are many, many areas where AI can be deployed to all of our lives and I think that's the thing that we haven't started yet, all right? And I see plenty of people out there saying, this is the start of the Internet boom like it was in 90's. Sure, okay. We'll see 20 years from now, we'll look back and wonder what the answer is. But AI, we're very, very early into this guidance.

Matthew Niknam

So, I'm going to ask if this is going to be a very high level simplistic question. But at what point do you think is, obviously, you mentioned significant investment being made in GPUs. Obviously, broader internal corporate focus has pivoted to AI. At what point if we're trying to sort of track that trail, when does that sort of translating into more material needle-moving contribution for Arista?

Martin Hull

And the worst, you can say yes, clearly. Ethernet, so it's challenging for us to say this is AI, this isn't, because the front-end network is kind of still part of the AI infrastructure is just, we're going to buy that anyway. So it's difficult to know when it starts, and when it finishes. It is difficult to quantify it, but here we are back in 2023, we're still in the early trials. '24 I think we'll get into meaningful deployments, and then '25, I think is when you'll start to see that kick through into what you choose to call needle-moving.

Matthew Niknam

The revenue base is bigger. So it's got to be needle-moving?

Martin Hull

Yes.

Matthew Niknam

Okay. Ethernet versus InfiniBand, interesting topic. I know it's becoming more and more topical. What are the relative advantages of Ethernet relative to InfiniBand? And I say this as maybe less technical person asking more of an expert in this space, what are the relative advantages of Ethernet relative to InfiniBand, as it relates to AI networking infrastructure?

Martin Hull

There's probably two or three points, and not a whole technical.

Matthew Niknam

Yes.

Martin Hull

Good. Ethernet is a multi-vendor technology. You can buy it from a number of vendors, I'd always like the customers to buy it from Arista, but they have choices. The multi-vendor market out there. Ethernet is the primary technology deployed in data centers today for all network functions. InfiniBand is a single supplier technology that gets deployed in the back-end network, effectively a niche, a corner case.

As you want to try and expand your AI scenarios to be ubiquitous in every location around the world. Are you going to re-purpose every single datacenter from Ethernet to InfiniBand? No. So how much did InfiniBand grow in those ubiquitous deployments, and how much does it get contained within a niche? That's going to be decision each customer chooses to make. When you look at the collective, you look at the broader picture.

Ethernet, inevitably becomes the significant technology for AI deployments. That's kind of the business side of it. If you want to go out to the market and you want to hire a networking expert, you challenge them on all that questions, they're going to be Ethernet questions. You're not going to be asking InfiniBand questions. So where do you find the spots. Customers don't necessarily want to go to InfiniBand, but that's where they are now.

Then you look at the technology, scale out Ethernet, multi-tenant segmentation, multi-clients hosting, giving you a slice of AI in a different customer, different slice of AI. Ethernet has the tools and the technologies. Ethernet has the troubleshooting. Ethernet has a monitoring. And then by the way did I mentioned multi-vendor. So, I think it's inevitable. So I'm not going to call the score in the first innings.

Matthew Niknam

Okay. Okay. Great and just you mentioned customer like - effectively just using sort of multi-vendor, and maybe customer propensity or desire to do that. Any initial reactions here from customers, just in relation to the Ultra Ethernet Consortium that you're part of alongside some other partners?

Martin Hull

So the Ultra Ethernet Consortium, the key is in third word Consortium.

Matthew Niknam

Yes.

Martin Hull

It's multi-vendor. So it's systems vendors, its silicon vendors, and it's some very large-scale customers. Recognizing jointly that there are some areas within the existing technology that can be improved, and enhanced to be more suited to the challenges that AI is bringing. [Ultra-Ethernet] Consortium, you work collectively on it, bring the best brands industry together, a new enhanced existing Ethernet protocols.

We do that so that you now have a solution. That has the best-of-breed from multiple suppliers, silicon systems and customers. Customers look at things like Flow Control, monitoring, and troubleshooting and saying - to be nice if we had this technology, this capability, this new header in the field. We could all just agree what the header looks like and what we're going to call it, how we're going to use it, let's implement that.

In silicon many systems, so the end-customers get that advantage. That's what the Ultra Ethernet Consortium is trying to do. There's some initial work, there is a draft going to come out to some of the first works of that is now been opened up to other people kind of apply to join the UEC is open Consortium. And I look forward to seeing what comes out of that in the next few years that helps customers take Ethernet to the next level.

Matthew Niknam

Okay. You obviously mentioned responsibility tied to Arista broader platform. So maybe from a high level, if you could talk about some of the key differentiators that have enabled Arista to win the type of market share that it has, and we can maybe spread this both across cloud titans as well as enterprise, largely getting to what's the secret sauce?

Martin Hull

One hardware guy, secret sauces software, it pains me to say it. I joined Arista say little bit over 12 years ago and I used to do - I joined as Systems Engineer. So part of the long, and we used to go out on customer calls, but I will talk about latency and package the second and how bright the LEDs were, and the customers' eyes would roll back of their head. We pivoted, and started talking about software, open, programmable, scalable, resilient, reliable.

By the way, you can buy the software to run this really cool hardware, if you want and the software is sticker so, software differentiates everything we do from an architecture perspective - present into a high-quality product, and again it pains me to say it. Software is the differentiator in this industry. And the EOS software quality speaks for itself, right? If we didn't have a quality product, we wouldn't have got our first customer. We wouldn't have got 7,000.

Liz Stine

9,000.

Martin Hull

9,000 customer, right? And that's how we have those conversations with customers. Give us a chance, let loose. But we get them into what we call a proof-of-concept. They test it, try it, they put it into the production environment. And the proof is there.

Matthew Niknam

Are there other - obviously we think about sort of adjacencies maybe broadening the platform, are there areas opportunities you see where Arista may be able to bolster the platform, either organically or inorganically? And are there things that customers may be asking, you want to see more of in terms of platform enhancements over time?

Martin Hull

Yes, not a lost beats the future. But if we look to the past, we've done both internal developments, and we've done bolt-on acquisitions. So - if you look at a typical campus networking, here we are at campus - using WiFi on our phones and laptops. WiFi was clearly an area where we needed something to go toward the enterprises. We did the acquisition a few years ago.

When you start thinking about how an enterprise runs and that working has to be secured from the inside out. So, we had Awake acquisition. We've also had an internal development of an identity solution. And we recently announced our first foray into enterprise-wide area networks. So you kind of circle that core enterprise and you look at the technologies that are laid on top of it, I think those are the obvious areas.

Identity, security, connectivity, WiFi, and then the XR connectivity. I think those are the areas where you're going to see us doing that. And big bold moves, I don't think that's in our D&A.

Matthew Niknam

I'm going to pause and just open it up to anybody - the question. I see there's one here.

Unidentified Analyst

Hi, Martin, just to follow-up on the enterprise side. Can you talk about, has the pace at which you guys can gain share, it is seeing a step-change, something different in the past, and the reason why I'm saying this is that. I understand the point you made about the portfolio being followed, but even for the enterprise now. But also partly is just replacing existing equipment from the incumbent, and I always thought there is - only if certain pace, which you can gain share. I'm trying to understand is this recent accelerated growth, and this really change in your mind or will it be steadier share gains as we've seen in the past, is there any difference? Thanks.

Martin Hull

There's probably a couple of dynamics playing out in that one. Clearly a lot of people hit pause three years ago. And so there is - an attacks, they've to be paid down. Some of the infrastructure that's aging, and it didn't get refresh for a while. So it's due, it's coming up for renewal. There's also the 800-pound gorilla in there at the first-generation of their licensing subscription model, that's also coming up for renewal on the first round of re-ups.

So both of those create opportunities at that if you will. As I say - as you commented, our portfolio has expanded. So, the conversations with the customers now are more, full. If the customer is necessarily interested in infrastructure refresh, maybe there is a security conversation, maybe there's a one conversation. We were able to have more conversations with the same customers.

You can keep engaged, and that then leads to being in the right place at the right time. So multiples of those factors kind of come together, but you still have to execute, right, the 800-pound Gorilla is not going anywhere, and why would they. So, we still have to be at the top of our game, right? We can't assume anything. We don't walk into these opportunities. But you do develop over the years, you develop the relationships.

And the other thing we're starting to see now is key customers advocating for us and turning around to their peers in the industry and going, why wouldn't you use Arista. When you start to get that name recognition, the brand recognition, the referrals and again, sometimes that's an accelerator, while there is a model there - in all verticals. But then - you think about the financial services in New York, right, it's a fairly close shop over there.

There is a whole bunch of technical guys who talk to each other, they change firms over the years, they know each other. You can say the same thing about, where I'm from the Bay Area, new accounts, customers know each other. There is an undercurrent and a Grapevine of, have you used it? What do you think? How was your experience? So that peer-review, peer recognition, nobody necessarily want to be first, but nobody wants to be last either.

Matthew Niknam

So, let's pivot a little bit and talk about 2024 and Liz I apologize in advance, you can jump in and stop me whenever you like. So on the last call, there was talk of some optimism around maintaining double-digit growth next year. And again, as I sort of look at your two largest customers at least, they intend on accelerating their CapEx spend, but just based on what's out there and consensus for next year. How does - what you see from them - from these larger customers, and broader customer-base aligned with sort of your current visibility, and aligned with that view around maintaining double-digit growth?

Martin Hull

Definitely, this one is now for Liz.

Liz Stine

I know, we'll definitely get into kind of a little bit more of the details around 2024 at our Analyst Day in November. So Shane was plugged for November, right. But I think as we go through the year, obviously, we upped our guidance for 2023 to 30%. When we get into November, we'll have a little bit more of that visibility and we'll kind of break out what the business looks like going into 2024.

But this internal goal of kind of that double-digit growth, I mean that low-double-digit growth, this has been something that's been around for a while. Jayshree even mentioned that kind of last November, when we were talking around that kind of 5-year CAGR that we put out there from 2020 to 2025 in 20%, and that implies some deceleration. And so, the internal goal has always been, can we grow the business in double-digits even if cloud be somewhat cyclical.

And we've always said that, cloud could be somewhat cyclical what that cycle actually looks like. It's kind of the hard part to put together the timing of that cycle, but that's always been the internal goal.

Matthew Niknam

Okay. We'll stay tuned.

Liz Stine

Yes, stay tuned.

Matthew Niknam

Just - we talked a lot of our cloud titans, and obviously we focused on the two bigger ones, who are sort of names, what about the use cases and opportunity you have with other potential? I think there's about 5% of that 46% last year, there was about 41% from M&M, there's about another 5% that are the other. Where do you see potential for Arista to maybe address opportunities with maybe other cloud or scaled customers that are not being met today?

Martin Hull

So as you call out, that clearly we have some business with them already. We will likely to be larger, absolutely. And we have a role to play in their network infrastructure today. But it's not out what you like to think is at the heart, not at the center. Opportunities within those areas are not necessary technically based. These are strategic organizational decisions. They were taken many years ago, and the election to go into different strategic direction that kind of triggers that it will take for us to be able to move in that direction.

We engage with them deeply. Engineering teams that support the other hyperscalers, sustained engineering teams in that criteria that requirements on fundamentally different. They just have a different sensitivity in terms of build versus buy. So, we remain ready. What will it take, I don't think it's in our control.

Matthew Niknam

And is the change in supply-chain dynamic - the worsening dynamic last couple of years, is that change in the thought process from some of these other customers?

Martin Hull

No, they've got deep supply chain organizations. That was the right networking, we're talking about building facilities and compute and stories, they basically build everything themselves. They have deep supply chain organizations. And they have got just as many professionals in those organizations as we do in ours, sometimes come together as more. So they are just as able to address the problems.

I don't think anybody solves it, but address the problems, when we did in the same way as we did. We have conversation, supply-chain to supply-chain, what are we seeing collectively. What do we think is going to happen a year from now. So, those conversations, not just engineering, we're talking supply-chain to supply-chain to make sure that we're all.

Everybody leans left at the same time, everybody leans right at the same time. We will act as humans, right. We all kind of go in the same way. So, sometimes it's good to make sure that we are leaning in the same direction seeing the same thing from supply-chain. So, we have a deep engagement with them, engineering level, supply-chain, and software-software, and what will it take, difficult to say.

Matthew Niknam

Okay. We've woven in a couple of questions on enterprise. But if we can maybe talk a little bit more around how demand within enterprise has been trending? What's the growth profile looks like within enterprise, and maybe I'll pause there and then throw in a question about backlog afterwards, but maybe we'll start?

Martin Hull

We're going to put this one to you.

Liz Stine

Yes, I think when you look at our enterprise business, it's all about new logos, it's all about expanding the portfolio - the presence and footprint within our current customers, right? And we are still the share gainer. If you look at our financials is our oldest vertical. We'd still probably say that we're underpenetrated there and there's still a long runway of opportunity. And now we've broadened out our verticals.

You hear Jayshree talk on all the earnings calls, trying to give some examples of some of these enterprise customers that we're dealing and then obviously, we've expanded our portfolio. Now, as Martin was saying earlier, that gives us more opportunities at the table. We're no longer sitting around waiting for a data center opportunity, which could be five or seven years in the making.

We have opportunities at the campus, at routing, and network monitoring detection, like all of those are opportunities to prove out the quality of EOS, to prove out the operational efficiencies of CloudVision. And so, we now are looking for that corner case, that use case that we can kind of prove out those because really experiencing the difference of EOS, is what makes that decision, right?

Everybody is selling a quality product, you want them to experience it. So looking for that corner use case, having more opportunities at the table to prove that out, and then doing a natural land and expand. So really around new logos, and then expanding those logos.

Matthew Niknam

Is there still, I mean, maybe what is the growth profile, if you can help us just ballpark to think about how fast enterprise is growing, and how sizable if it still is in terms of backlog burn and contribution to that growth?

Liz Stine

I mean, you look at it kind of the data center side and you look at the campus side of things. The campus is a good metric to watch. Obviously, we've been making traction in the campus. We had the $400 million goal for 2022. We talked about meeting that from a demand perspective and obviously from a shipment perspective maybe fell a little short. We've put out kind of that longer-term 2025 goal of $750 million, and we continue to execute well against that goal in campus.

I mean, obviously, that's still a very small portion of that overall market. We're really targeting those large enterprise customers. If you look at the campus market overall, it's maybe $20 billion, and half of that is those large enterprise customers, and those are the ones that we engage within the direct sales model that we have at Arista.

Matthew Niknam

Okay. Thanks. And then just maybe one final question and the time that we have to maybe tie this all together, and maybe I'll throw it out to both of you. What do you think is the most underappreciated aspect of the Arista story from your seat, internally, and then maybe Liz from your seat as well?

Martin Hull

I'm still going to say software. I use to say it. So seriously software EOS is the biggest difference. I came into Arista 12 years ago. I'm excited about the silicon and the low-latency switches in the high-performance, but - at some level, anybody can build those. The software is the biggest differentiator, and I think it lasted us this long and lots of conversations with customers over the years about our quality is better, everybody says that.

We have a single-source tree, everybody says that. Everybody says it, nobody means it. And there's been a number of ah-ha moments, over the last 10 years, where we've been able to deliver feature to a customer that was game-changing for them, right, and the features in the software. So, those who use software to leverage our capabilities.

We are a software company, who happen to run it on top of merchant silicon, on dedicated hardware appliances, basically. But that's the biggest thing that we keep saying it, but we still get underappreciated for the fact software EOS and CloudVision are what makes us unique.

Liz Stine

I mean, I think that I would always say kind of the enterprise piece of the business just, because I joined 11 years ago, also as an SE, kind of targeting those enterprise customers, right? And seeing our product expansion, obviously, being able to offer kind of that end-to-end enterprise network, I think that's somewhat underappreciated, and as everybody wants to talk about cloud and everybody wants to talk about AI.

They forget that the enterprise is a good portion of our business, both in the data center, and the campus, and routing, and network monitoring, and detection, and we continue to build new products, and features, and functionalities that are really targeting these enterprise customers, and helping them operate much like the cloud.

Matthew Niknam

Great. Great way to end it. Martin and Liz, thank you both.

Liz Stine

Thank you.

Martin Hull

Thank you, Matt.