With more than a dozen vendors worldwide that make and sell optical equipment, it’s a crowded market.

Separating yourself from the pack is about a lot more than just pushing light through long-haul pipes.  The rise of the cloud, the demands of Internet Content Providers (ICPs) and the evolution toward SDN means optical vendors must rapidly innovate to address an increasingly complex market.

Ciena has been doing just that, and analyst firm IHS Infonetics just put some hard numbers behind our presence and momentum with its new 2015 Optical Network Hardware Vendor Scorecard.

Infonetics described Ciena as “hitting on all cylinders,” ranking Ciena #1 for market momentum, a leader in market presence, and an overall leader in this highly competitive market.  See below for Infonetics’ Leadership Landscape Graph for all 10 vendors evaluated.

The Infonetics Optical Scorecard is unique in its methodology,  evaluating the top optical hardware vendors using actual data and  metrics, including direct feedback from buyers, vendor market share,  market share momentum, financials, brand recognition, reputation for  innovation, and other benchmarks.

Infonetics then takes these metrics and classifies each vendor as  Leader, Established, or Challenger depending on their overall score.   Below is Ciena’s individual scorecard.

New for the 2015 Scorecard is a measure of each vendor for two categories: market presence and market momentum.  Market presence is measured by company size, brand recognition, reputation and financials.  Market momentum measures a vendor’s growth, potential, reputation for innovation and development of next gen technologies.

Only vendors that score high in both categories make it into the Leadership classification.

Infonetics ranked Ciena tops in market momentum and highly in market presence, with top market share gains in 2014 and a strong record for innovation and support.

“This result is proven out by strong customer perceptions of service and support and reliability. More customers like and respect Ciena products and technology than anyone else’s,” says the report’s analysis.

“The company is maintaining this momentum through investment in core technology or leadership with the supply chain by readily adapting new offerings. Customers perceive Ciena as one of the top companies in technological innovation as a result. They also recognize Ciena as a strong player in the emerging field of SDN technology, helping customers re-architect their networks to use SDN and NFV.”

You can download a Ciena excerpt of 2015 Infonetics Optical Scorecard here for all the details.