Over the past several columns I´ve talked about the broad and deep changes Trusted Networking is having on corporate networks. As a reminder, Trusted Networking is restructuring the IT security and networking industries as they embed access control, threat defense and containment, plus risk mitigation deeply into the network fabric. This restructuring has been taking place for some years but is now entering an accelerated pace as the rate of partnerships and acquisition activities increase. All the major enterprise players such as Cisco, HP, Nortel, Extreme, Foundry, 3Com, Enterasys, et al., have security programs as top corporate strategic initiatives and priorities. In addition to the large enterprise players, there are hundreds of security appliance companies focused on their niche in the Trusted Networks market such as Lockdown Networks, Crossbeam Systems etc. Traditional players such as Checkpoint, Symantec, Trend Micro, McAfee, CA and many others are aligned and partnered with one or many of the large enterprise players. All of the major service providers now offer managed firewall, VPN and IDS/IPS services. But for one company in particular ?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?Ñ?? Juniper Networks ?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?Ñ?? it is hard to tell if it will indeed be a factor in Trusted Enterprise networking.

Scott Kriens, chairman and CEO of Juniper Networks, has increased his focus on the enterprise market in both his speeches and acquisitions. Juniper just closed its acquisition of Peribit and Redline and inked a new partnership with Avaya in the fast growing IP telephony space. Redline is nicely positioned in the red hot web application acceleration market. Its 2004 $4+ Billion acquisition of NetScreen gave it a foot hold in the enterprise market as well and ?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ??¨market permission?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ¬¨?? to talk about network security. And talk about network security Juniper sure does under the ?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ??¨secure and assured networking?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ¬¨?? banner. Juniper is clearly on a roll; its last quarter net revenues were $493 million, compared to $306.9 million for the same period last year, an increase of 61%. They are nowhere near the $22 billion that Cisco made last year, but they are growing significantly in the service provider market.

So with all this going for them — acquisitions, growth, being in the right markets, having good partners, etc., — why would I question whether Juniper could be a factor in the Trusted Networks market? There are a few issues that give me pause when I consider Juniper´s potential corporate network success.

Pause 1: Lack of direct enterprise relationships. Netscreen´s products were distributed to the enterprise market mostly through service providers. While this allowed Netscreen to grow at low cost, it didn´t capture the enterprise relationship in most cases. Juniper´s Netscreen acquisition gave it another set of products to sell to service providers, rather than build and enhance enterprise relationships.

Pause 2: Product strategy. Juniper´s Redline acquisition is layer 4 through 7 appliances. Juniper does not own any layer 2, i.e., Ethernet switching and WLAN products. You can make the argument that this is smart as Ethernet switching and WLANs are a commodity and there are many, maybe too many, players, offering similar products. But layer 2 is also becoming a platform in which Trusted Network services are hosted. Just look at Cisco´s catalyst switches and Network Admission Control (NAC), Nortel´s Ethernet Routing Switch Portfolio with Threat Protection System (TPS), ProCurve Networking by HP´s Interconnect switches with Virus Throttle, Extreme´s switches with its Clear-Flow security technology and Foundry´s switches with its IronShield Security technology. All of these product families will deliver some form of network access control to stop the propagation of exploits before they enter the network. This hole in Juniper´s product strategy relegates it to an appliance-based security approach. Doing network access control in appliances will not be an effective mitigation strategy as a session has to flow through the network to reach the appliance, leaving that network path open to exploit propagation.

Pause 3: Sales and marketing. Juniper is a company that sells to service providers. Its sales, distribution and marketing are all geared toward that customer or market segment. While it may be building a sales and marketing channel to reach the enterprise market, it´s not there yet.

Pause 4: Making the jump. No company in a post-1984 divestiture world has been able to start as a service provider equipment manufacturer and leap into the enterprise market successfully. Yes, you can look at IBM, Microsoft, HP, Cisco, et al., as serving both markets successfully, but they all started in the enterprise market. Lucent sold off Avaya to focus on the service provider market because it couldn´t serve both. Nortel purchased Bay to enter the enterprise market, but enterprise revenues are far below its service providers. You can make the same observations about Alcatel, Nokia, Ericsson, Marconi and Siemens. The door just does not seem to swing both ways. Could it be the competencies gained from serving the enterprise market of a faster product development pace, quicker market and sales cycles and deep distribution allows a company to enter the service provider door from the enterprise side? Possibly, but there aren´t any examples that show the door opening the other way.

Perhaps Juniper is the exception. And maybe the world of convergence is the special hinge that allows the door to swing both ways. Or maybe analyst expectations are too high on Juniper and Juniper would be satisfied being a leader in one or two enterprise segments that are closely aligned to the service provider market? They can talk network security to build enterprise
relationships, moving product deeper into the enterprise. For sure, they are on a roll and have market attention. But the real question remains: will Juniper be a niche Trusted Networks player or a major influence and force?

Posted 3 August 2005 at 7:24 am under Lippis Report, Enterprise Mobility. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.