Ex-Cisco executive facing lawsuit Jayshree Ullal defends Arista, blasts Cisco

After being slapped with a lawsuit by rival Cisco this week, newly public company Arista Networks has come out swinging. Its CEO, former Cisco star engineer Jayshree Ullal, posted a blog that implies that Cisco is a has-been. She has labeled Cisco as part of the "second-wave" of network vendors being overrun by a host of "third-wave" companies that includes Arista. She says that aging companies "often fall by the wayside" and "resort to tactics that do not benefit customers or expand markets as a means of defending their market position".

By tactics, she means lawsuits. When hearing of the lawsuit on Friday, Ullal said, "I am disappointed at Cisco's tactics.It's not the Cisco I knew."

Wait, there's more. The post describes "protectors" versus "pioneers".She writes: "Protectors defend old habits and remain strongly entrenched in following legacy technology trends... They deploy inappropriate tactics that serve to distract customers and partners from making the investments that will lead to competitive advantage."

To recap the drama: Arista is an upstart networking equipment company formed by two famous Valley billionaires, Andy Bechtolsheim and David Cheriton, and run by a whole bunch of exCisco employees.(Bechtolsheim, Arista's Chief Development Officer and chairman is also a former Cisco employee after Cisco bought one of his previous startups.)

Cisco has accused Arista of stealing and copying its tech as these employees left the company. It's an old fashioned patent infringement/copyright infringement suit. Arista has become a growing threat to Cisco (though Cisco refutes this).

Cisco is yet to comment on Ullal's blog.