HPE today announced the sucessful completion of its acquisition of AI-native networks company Juniper Networks, Inc., initiailly announced in April of last year.
HPE said the transaction doubles the size of the their networking business “and provides customers with a comprehensive portfolio of networking solutions.
Completion of the deal came soon after the U.S. Department of Justice settled a legal challenge that began not long after HPE announced the planned purchase of Juniper 18 months ago. HPE stock is up nearly 14 percent since the DoJ news broke late Friday.
The acquisition positions HPE to leverage Juniper’s network capabilities to compete with Cisco and Nvidia in the data center and AI factory segments. HPE said the combination strengthens the company’s offering for the growing AI and hybrid cloud market by creating a cloud-native and AI-driven IT portfolio, including a full networking stack.
“Today begins a new era for HPE – we are now at the epicenter of the transformation of IT, where AI and networking are converging,” said Antonio Neri, president and CEO of HPE. “In addition to positioning HPE to offer our customers a modern network architecture alternative and an even more differentiated and complete portfolio across hybrid cloud, AI, and networking, this combination accelerates our profitable growth strategy as we deepen our customer relevance and expand our total addressable market into attractive adjacent areas. We look forward to welcoming the Juniper team to HPE.”
“HPE and Juniper have a unique opportunity to disrupt the networking industry at the most important and relevant time,” said Rami Rahim, former CEO of Juniper Networks, who will now lead the combined HPE Networking business. “Together, we’ll be able to provide customers and partners with a secure network that is purpose-built with AI and for AI.”
HPE said the acquisition:
- Accelerates HPE’s vision with a full networking IP stack: from silicon, to hardware, to the operating system, to security, to software and services, with a cloud-native and AI-driven approach. This integration will accelerate customers’ deployment and adoption of both hybrid cloud and AI, HPE said.
- Strengthens HPE’s position in networking. The acquisition doubles the size of HPE’s networking business, increasing its scope and total addressable market, the company said. The combined company will reach large adjacent markets, including data center, firewalls, and routers, bridging the global strength of HPE in enterprise security-first networking and SASE security with Juniper’s position in data center, service provider, and AI-native solutions.
- Provides customers with a AI-native foundation forend-to-end networking. The transaction builds on the combined capabilities of HPE and Juniper to provide customers of all sizes with the modern networking architecture to manage complex connectivity needs – particularly those driven by data-intensive, hybrid AI workloads. Greater research and development scale will enable faster innovation across networking silicon, systems, and software.
- Gives customers access to HPE’s portfolio offering across networking, hybrid cloud, and AI. Networking customers will benefit from HPE innovation across its full portfolio offering – including hybrid cloud, storage, compute, and software – to accelerate and simplify their AI transformations.
- Capitalizes on HPE’s go-to-market scale. The transaction creates revenue growth opportunities, as Juniper offerings benefit from HPE’s large, global go-to-market model and team. The combined company will offer secure, AI-native solutions with the ability to collect, analyze, and act on insightful network data across a broader installed base.
The acquisition was originally announced on January 9, 2024 and approved by Juniper shareholders on April 2, 2024. With the completion of the transaction, shares of Juniper’s common stock, which traded on the NYSE under the symbol “JNPR,” will cease trading as of today and will no longer be listed on the NYSE.
