HPE On Juniper Acquisition: Networking Now Core to Everything We Do

“HPE will be a new company where networking will be the core foundation of everything we do.”

That was the declaration made Wednesday by HPE CEO Antonio Neri following the vendor’s $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks.

“What we’re doing today with this proposed acquisition is to create a new core,” said Neri. “That core is the network fabric by which we deliver hybrid cloud native services with the rest of the portfolio.”

This will be delivered by the GreenLake platform, he added.

HPE's Antonio Neri

Neri, alongside Juniper CEO Rami Rahim, fielded questions from media and analysts in a virtual briefing. There, he revealed that HPE planned to accelerate “an AI-driven agenda."

“The biggest inflection since the dawn of the internet itself is artificial intelligence,” said Rahim. “We will be able to bring the depth and the breadth of the portfolios necessary to capture the full market opportunity that AI presents. That combination is going to be incredibly powerful to solving our customers' most compelling AI needs in the market.”

Rahim also admitted one of the things that has held Juniper from achieving faster market share growth in the enterprise is scale.

“The ability to go and pursue more customers, especially internationally around the globe," he said. "That, when this deal closes, will change overnight — because of the channel and the direct sellers that HPE Aruba already has in place.”

Juniper Networks' Rami Rahim

The briefing revealed that HPE will continue to be a “partner-led company,” with Juniper benefitting from HPE Aruba’s channel outside of North America. Neri also said the acquisition will make channel partners “much more relevant.”

“Juniper now will get access to our crown jewel, which is the partner community, and in particular, outside the United States,” he said. “So that scale will allow us to bring fantastic technology from Juniper … to the rest of the world in ways that probably Juniper couldn’t have done themselves. And then on the reverse here in North America, we’re going to leverage the massive install base Juniper has to bring the rest of the portfolio as ramped up just a little bit.”

See the slideshow above for the highlights from the briefing, including how HPE plans to integrate Juniper, and what’s next for partners.