Juniper is about to make a strategic blunder
It's my opinion that Juniper is prematurely ending its 100% off certification exam promotion.
By Brad Reese on Wed, 09/30/09 - 11:23pm.
Two months ago, I blogged that Juniper was promoting vouchers offering 100% off its certification exams until the end of 2009. Well, Juniper is now advising that its ending the 100% off promotion on October 9, 2009.
So why is Juniper ending the promotion so early?
It's my understanding the promotion has been too successful, too quickly!
Perhaps having too many Cisco certified engineers becoming newly certified on Juniper is too costly.
Now we know why Cisco's the leader in networking, its competitors are milquetoasts!
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Do you agree that Juniper's about to make a strategic blunder?
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Juniper a potential takeover target?
Sorry, I don't have much to add about sales, promotions, partnerships, etc. but speaking of Juniper...... some potential M&A possibilities on the horizon.
Now that Cisco has back-stabbed their long-time partners HPQ and IBM by entering the server market, rumors are abuzz that Juniper could be a potential acquisition target by HPQ or IBM or Dell by late this year or early Q1 of 2010, out to demolish Cisco in their forte -- networking gear.
We should always take these speculations with a grain of salt, but hey, no one could ever dream up an ORCL-JAVA marriage... and look what happened. Anything is possible, really.
I personally think IBM will swallow up Brocade/Foundry, and/or some of the smaller ones (Vyatta, Riverbed for WAN, F5 Networks, etc.), but HPQ could possibly make a huge $15B+ acquisition for Juniper. They swallowed EDS last year for more or less the same big amount (~ $14B), and so far, it turned to be extremely successful for HOQ.
Best,
nice
nice
A HP-Juniper buy out will
A HP-Juniper buy out will definitely give Chambers real heartburn.
Indeed.
It is a fairly good possibility. I was also hearing rumors that HPQ's corporate development guys were looking at ALU ~$8B + subsidiary ALU companies like Genesys, etc). But now that the landscape has changed, the likelihood of IBM scoping up Brocade, Vyatta, Riverbed, etc. and building a portfolio of network management products is very much possible and touted by many analysts on Wall St. and Silicon Valley.
HPQ acquiring Juniper is a realistic possibility simply because HPQ's ProCurve and NG-OSS businesses are profitable, but nothing really strong on the NMS side that Cisco dominates. Juniper will just fit in nicely and couple that with their HP-UX OS, they'll be an enterprise powerhouse, even beating Cisco with Service Provider, Carrier, Wireless Operators, etc. around the globe that Cisco dominates.
Plus, HPQ is known for large multi-billion dollar acquisitions when it comes to entering new markets (a la Mercury, EDS for $14B, etc). So a $12B price tag for Juniper is not much of a big deal, even if it's a cash and stock or a debt equity acquisition.
I've said this before and I'll say it again: in terms of competition, Cisco's biggest troubles won't be from IBM, Dell, or HP on the server, UCS, or NMS/network equipment side... it'll be in the lucrative Managed Services space. This is where players like Ericsson (now with 4G/LTE, etc) are making significant wins, including on Cisco's home turf at AT&T and Verizon. Managed Services/SDP (even more than stupid Cloud computing) is the future, and if Cisco doesn't up their game in this area, they risk the possibility of seeing their demise and becoming the next Nortel.
Best,
Fun
Aside from the Cisco fanboy tone of story, I agree that there could be some interesting opportunities at-hand to give Chambers some well-deserved heartburn.
:)
John Chambers catches another break
Hi Smithwill,
I agree that John Chambers has caught yet another break with Juniper prematurely ending this promotion because it's been too successful, too quickly!
I guess it's just not in Juniper's "financial budget" to break the back of Cisco's competitive advantage (i.e. its "army" of Cisco Certified Network Engineers).
Oh well,
Brad Reese on Cisco
Network World Cisco Subnet
BradReese.Com Cisco Refurbished
Juniper is about to make a strategic blunder
I somehow don't think it was a blunder. Offering the free certs gets more engineers looking at the gear and junipers offerings in general. Most engineers I come across are pretty impressed especially in the security space.
Additionally I hope they don't get bought by one of the big boys. . .if that happens an army of senior managers will be installed, all desperate to make their mark and the company will in the long run bleed all of it's talent.
It's a strategic blunder to end the program
Hi Andre,
I thought I'd made it clear that Juniper's strategic blunder was ending the program.
Love your statement:
It's my understanding Juniper has "no data" regarding Juniper sales that were generated as a result of the program, hence Juniper's decision to end the program because of financial budget reasons.
Kinda scary in my opinion!
Sincerely,
Brad Reese on Cisco
Network World Cisco Subnet
BradReese.Com Cisco Refurbished
Blunder after Blunder
Juniper had already blundered when it chose the path of retiring ScreenOS - not that is has been done officially but the writting is on the wall with the SRX series of products. Many Juniper partners and customers were not just happy with ScreenOS but intimate with it and I, like many others have moved back to Cisco as a focus for security products.
As immpressive as JunOS may be on the security side, many organizations cannot affort to retrain all of thier staff on yet another OS - wheather the training is free or not, there is always a cost assiciated with the learning curve.
juniper strategic blunder.
yes, brad you are right. and another strategic blunder was trying to buy camiant as lightreading reported today. procera would be a much better choice. camiants solution at comcast, replacing sandvine, was not complete without it.
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