Top IT vendors report good financials, onging supply woes

While key network vendors continue to report good financial results, all of the players report continued supply-chain issues and increased order backlogs—challenges that show little sign of abating before the end 2023. Arista supply issues A good example is Arista Networks, which reported its first billion dollar quarter in its history despite the “challenges of an uncertain supply-chain environment,” Jayshree Ullal, Arista President and CEO said during the firm’s Q2 financial call this week. [ Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. ] Ullal said the company faced an additional challenge—ordered components becoming unavailable at the last minute. Inventory increased $852.8 million in the quarter, up from $694.2 million in the prior period, the vendor’s CFO said. “We need all the components to come together and the component problem continues,” Ullal said “It was bad in Q1, it’s no better in Q2 ,and we’re not seeing it going forward with much improvement in Q3. So perhaps in 2023, we’ll get some relief. But again, to get relief, we have to have all the components come. If we’re missing one component, we cant build a system,” Ullal said. He said that many components have 70-week lead times, which means the company has to plan multiple quarters and even years ahead of time.