Juniper changes welcomed
25 June 2008
Juniper Networks has revealed its move into the enterprise switching sector paid off during the first quarter of its fiscal 2008. Juniper’s UK revenues over the last three months were up 26 per cent compared to the same period in 2007.
Globally, Juniper made sales of $822.9m, up 31 per cent on Q1 ’07, with EMEA accounting for just over 30 per cent of its sales.
The launch of an enterprise switch portfolio by Juniper back in February was welcomed partly as a fresh challenge to Cisco, and partly because it gave partners the ability to sell end-to-end solutions.
Juniper has now upped the ante again with the expansion of its J-Care technical services package to include a new set of Advanced Insight Solutions (AIS) a family of performance-enhancing services that enable remote, proactive network monitoring by Juniper partners using intelligence built into Juniper’s JUNOS 9.0 software
This comes just a fortnight after Cisco formally unveiled its own Smart Care monitoring service.
Andrew Slater, Juniper sales boss at Notts-based Quantix, saw the expansion in the firm’s services less as a direct attack on Cisco’s business, and more as an attempt to become a best-of-breed provider.
”They’re trying to get into the top quadrants in the Gartner reports, and want to become a master of various key technology areas,” he said.
“We’re dovetailing their services into our own so we can brand it as Quantix and foster a closer relationship at a technological level,” he added.
Other partners saw the service as more evidence of a changing attitude to the channel.
“Juniper wasn’t very partner-centric in the past. They reminded me of organisations like Cisco or IBM in the bad old days,” said one reseller.
“They were covetous about their IP, and not keen on partners doing maintenance,” he added.
Juniper was unavailable for comment.
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