Can Juniper make you switch?

I’ve got a niche

A Juniper Ethernet switch would throw the vendor into an arena comprising several well-established players where each fills a certain niche, joining the competition between Cisco, Foundry and ProCurve; and smaller players Extreme Networks, 3Com. and Enterasys Networks. Cisco is the dominant switch choice for performance and reliability. Foundry cornered the high-end, high-performance switching market. And ProCurve, has established itself as a strong option among value-conscious customers, with its affordable price-per-port offerings and lifetime warranties.

Atrion’s Grillo said: “Unfortunately for Juniper and others, Cisco hasn’t done anything wrong that opens the door. Cisco has been pretty solid the last several years. If the market demanded something new with all of the convergence and VoIP coming on and Cisco didn’t have it, Juniper may have a chance.”

But, Grillo said, unless such a hole appears in Cisco’s product line that Juniper can exploit, there will have to be some compelling reason for VARs to present a Juniper switch to their customers and, in turn, make those customers comfortable with that decision. “People don’t get fired for making a Cisco decision,” he said. “But people can get fired if you bring in a ‘Brand X’ switch and it doesn’t perform.”

Grillo said he talked to Juniper four or five years ago about adding an Ethernet switch to its enterprise networking lineup, but little came from those discussions. At the time, Cisco’s widely popular Catalyst switching line was still fresh. Had Juniper struck then, Cisco may not have the dominant position it holds today.

Even Juniper CEO and Chairman Scott Kriens, in interviews with CRN last year, downplayed the possibility of Juniper adding enterprise switching.

“The strategy we see is the opportunity to secure and manage the ports regardless of who manufactures them,” Kriens said last year.

“As long as we see the opportunity to do that, then the company who provides, essentially, the commodity called the Ethernet port itself becomes less important to the user, and their control over it becomes what’s strategic. Therefore, we can solve a strategic problem with less of an issue of having to become one of the commodity suppliers.”

Uphill battle

Bad timing and stiff competition aside, Zeus Kerravala, senior vice president at reserach firm Yankee Group said Juniper’s record also won’t play in its favour. It’s been marginally successful on the security side with the NetScreen acquisition of four years ago, and the J-Series routers it has developed organically have been slow to gain acceptance. On top of that, Juniper has no true wireless or VoIP offerings.

“There are a lot of holes in Juniper’s portfolio,” Kerravala said.

Grillo disagreed, saying that Juniper’s high-performance routers and its SSL VPN are the best on the market and Juniper’s success with those products may help it get into new accounts with its switching lineup.

“The one thing they have going for them is a solid track record,” Grillo said.

For current switching options, and other pieces the vendor lacks, such as WLAN and VoIP components, Juniper typically pushes VARs toward its technology partners, including Avaya Inc., Extreme and Meru Networks.

Grillo said his Juniper business is thriving, but about 98 percent of that comes from the security side. “Juniper’s a great company,” he said.

“They have great products and a good program. Can they do it? Maybe. I don’t have a crystal ball. But I’ve seen stranger things happen.”

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