After spending the last few years stealthily bulking up its product lineup and go-to-market machine, Nokia is ready to flex its muscles on the main stage. Its goal? Supplant Cisco to sit alongside Arista Networks as a leader in the data center networking arena. And it looks like things are already headed in the right direction.
Earlier this month, the company inked a marquee deal to supply hyperscale titan Microsoft with data center routers and switches. And Nokia VP of Data Center Mike Bushong told Fierce it has another big announcement coming up next week.
As for its plan of attack, Bushong said Nokia is aiming to win business not just from the handful of hyperscalers out there, but also customers from what it calls “cloud majors” and Global 2,000 enterprises who are building out their own data center infrastructure. Cloud majors, by the way, include hosting and colocation providers, software-as-a-service companies, and gaming and content players.
While Nokia has already proven itself in the telecom industry as a leading provider of mission critical equipment, its biggest challenge in the data center realm is – ironically enough – name recognition, Bushong said.