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HPE On Juniper Acquisition: Networking Now Core to Everything We Do
HPE CEO Antonio Neri called partners the company's "crown jewel," saying that opportunities will be massive for both companies' channels.
![HPE Juniper acquisition creates networking behemoth HPE Juniper acquisition creates networking behemoth](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/blt11bfb5f9d4fafe40/6525cac0b57670931c47711e/Global-Network.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
Ravil Sayfullin/Shutterstock
Regarding the channel, Rahim said Juniper can “leverage the HPE Aruba sales and channel organization to achieve more growth around the globe. And over time, we can think about how to thoughtfully and seamlessly build the best of both worlds from both solutions into a common road map for our customers.”
“My commitment to the channel has always been [to] bring the best technology and the best people to allow them to be relevant to our customers,” added Neri. “This combination is going to make our partners much more relevant because we’re going to make it simpler for them to combine the two portfolios and then meet and exceed the customer expectations.”
Neri added that HPE currently works with distributors VARs, SI and ISV partners. But through the AI inflection point, the firm has “an opportunity to partner much [more] broadly that just what we call today the channel."
“HPE today transacts [with] over 200,000 partners around the globe. In Aruba, 95% of the business goes through the channel. So think about that scale. Now add in a consistent programming approach with the rest of the Juniper portfolio. So for us is a massive opportunity.”
Rahim maintained that the benefits of the acquisition extend beyond the enterprise to Juniper’s core cloud and service provider customers.
“Everybody today is building data centers: distributed data centers, centralized data centers. The ability for us to build comprehensive data center solutions with complete automation AI capabilities will extend across every single segment. The ability for us to complement our wide area networking portfolio – we’re capturing the 400G cycle. Eventually, we’ll get to get to the 800G cycle. With distributed cloud, distributed compute capabilities to roll in software for Berkeley and Orion, will just make us even more relevant to our service provider customers. So I’m equally excited about the service provider aspects of this combination as I am to the enterprise aspects,” he said.
Neri said there was no overlap in portfolios between the two firms. However, he pointed to HPE’s silicon offering, HPE Slingshot, and the potential to bridge the AI native and cloud-native worlds.
“With the data center business, and all the routing and other solutions that Juniper has, we can give a customer a complete edge to cloud to exascale super solution,” he said. “That’s a massive opportunity and the new HP networking business has the full stack IP.”
“The opportunity to combine the best of both worlds, the silicone capabilities that you bring to bear and those that Juniper brings is incredibly powerful. There is literally zero overlap in terms of the type of silicon we’re developing., but 100% complementary in terms of the ability to address all of the different networking layers with silicon capabilities,” added Rahim.
“Today’s silicon has ... become absolutely core to achieving the performance, the power efficiency, the sustainability capabilities that customers are all demanding on the campus and branch. Today, HPE Aruba and our Mist portfolio really address different architectures and the ability now as a single company … to satisfy all of our customers’ architectural requirements day one, is going to be great.”
Similarly, Rahim said he wasn’t worried about an overlap in other areas of Juniper and Aruba’s portfolio, such as wireless LAN, campus switching and SD-WAN.
“Again, I believe that the combination will allow us to address more customer use cases, day one,” he said.
The CEO said over time, the new company will combine the portfolios into a single road map, with opportunities for cross-sell and upsell in different areas of networking.
“Think about a customer of HPE that might have a campus branch solution. The opportunity to cross-sell and upsell AI native capabilities, or into the data center or into a cluster networking, is going to be a great opportunity for achieving growth and revenue.”
Neri described HPE’s much larger customer footprint outside of the United States as an opportunity to be “an entry for the Juniper team to go and address that install base.”
Some analysts expressed surprise at the acquisition, given HPE’s focus on its GreenLake platform in recent years. However, Neri said networking allows HPE to deliver a better experience for customers.
“The most difficult part of the architecture is that network. That’s why we believe this changes dramatically who we are, and it will increase our relevancy with customers and partners in ways we couldn ’t imagine before," Neri said.
When talking about Juniper leveraging HPE’s scale, Neri took the opportunity to trumpet HPE’s most recent earnings.
“At the end of the fourth quarter, we announced that we already have $13 billion on the balance sheet in total contract value. Our ARR already crossed $1.3 billion with this acquisition," said Neri. "We’re obviously going to exceed $2 billion, but easily because we committed 35%-45% compound annual growth rate [CAGR]. So the benefit for Juniper Networks is that they get access to a true cloud-native platform at scale.
“Subscription and consumption at the scale that we do is very hard to do. So now Rami has the ability to leverage all those backend capabilities, to put his software and solutions on it," Neri added.
Neri doesn’t foresee any problems with the purchase of Juniper Networks, touting his previous success with HPE ’s acquisition of Aruba Networks.
“Look at the run rate of their business when I reverse-integrated the HPE networking business into the Aruba business. It was approximately $1.7 billion, and today at the end of 2023 was $5.3 billion. So we have grown that business dramatically.
“There are lessons learned that obviously I’m going to share with Rami as we go through the next phase once the transaction is closed. But fundamentally, one thing I learned [is] don’t disrupt the way we transact.
“Point No. 2: Drive that long-term vision of strategy and architecture, that they can see what additional benefits they will get through this union of amazing set of capabilities.
“This is not our first rodeo. We’ve both integrated companies and done so successfully. We’ll both bring lessons to the table," he concluded.
Neri doesn’t foresee any problems with the purchase of Juniper Networks, touting his previous success with HPE’s acquisition of Aruba Networks.
“Look at the run rate of their business when I reverse-integrated the HPE networking business into the Aruba business. It was approximately $1.7 billion, and today at the end of 2023 was $5.3 billion. So we have grown that business dramatically.
“There are lessons learned that obviously I’m going to share with Rami as we go through the next phase once the transaction is closed. But fundamentally, one thing I learned [is] don’t disrupt the way we transact.
“Point No. 2: Drive that long-term vision of strategy and architecture, that they can see what additional benefits they will get through this union of amazing set of capabilities.
“This is not our first rodeo. We’ve both integrated companies and done so successfully. We’ll both bring lessons to the table," he concluded.
“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 HPE's Antonio Neri](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/blta69ee37f54ee980e/6537d326c7c7126af8fc5c14/Neri-Antonio_HPE.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
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 Juniper Networks' Rami Rahim](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/blte94c0a1680534d2b/6524537d725d3b6c40bd9eb8/Rahim-Rami_Juniper-Networks.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
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.
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