Ingram Micro Gets AI Boost from Juniper-Owned Mist

Mist Systems, which Juniper Networks acquired last month for $405 million, has signed a distribution agreement with Ingram Micro for all Mist products, which the company refers to as AI for IT.

Going forward, Ingram Micro will provide marketing programs, logistics services, technical support, financial services and product aggregation and distribution in the U.S.

Ingram Micro’s Eric Kohl

“We’re pleased to add Mist to our robust portfolio of networking and cloud solutions, which already includes the full range of Juniper switching, routing and security solutions,” said Eric Kohl, vice president, Advanced Solutions, Ingram Micro U.S. “The Mist platform brings compelling innovation to the wireless space, giving our channel partners a new way to solve real end-user requirements using the latest AI, cloud and networking technologies.”

Juniper Networks, a longtime Ingram Micro technology partner, first announced its intent to acquire Mist Systems in March. Mist is a next-gen, AI-led vendor for cloud-managed wireless networks. The acquisition of Mist, which was a Juniper strategic partner prior to the acquisition, plugged a critical solution gap in Juniper’s campus networking portfolio.

In April, Sujai Hajela, Mist co-founder and chief executive, said that together with Juniper, the company’s mission was to a take a chunk out of the $20 billion networking industry, and that the collective team was working manically to make it happen.

“The competition is currently not innovating at a fast pace, and we believe we can leapfrog them with the first truly AI-driven solution born in the cloud that brings wired and wireless under one unified umbrella,” he said.

Hajela is now senior vice president at Juniper.

The combined Mist and Juniper portfolio – Mist WLAN platform with Juniper’s wired multi-rate switching, SD-WAN and network security portfolio – provides a full-stack solution for businesses and lays the foundation for a more comprehensive AI-driven infrastructure, the companies said.

“By uniting Ingram Micro’s experience and extensive knowledge of network, cloud and security solutions with Mist’s leading WLAN platform, we are ideally equipped to accelerate the adoption of AI-driven wireless in all industry segments,” said Mike Anderson, head of channels at Mist. “Mist has seen amazing growth in the past two years, with three of the Fortune 10 and approximately 25 of the Fortune 500 adopting our platform to deliver amazing wireless experiences to their employees, guests and customers. By entering into this new agreement with Ingram Micro, we now have the perfect force multiplier to build on this success and take our channel operations to the next level.”