Juniper to Get Deep in the Consumer Market

My Juniper account exec let some news slip yesterday.  We were on the phone talking about how great the SRX platform was and that I wanted to put one in my house instead of my ASA 5505.  Of course, I don’t want to spend too much on a new gateway device, so I asked if there was anything below the $100 mark.  He said there wasn’t anything on the books but there was something in the works.  I think he had a little too much to drink at dinner.  🙂

It turns out that Juniper is in talks to buy D-link – one of the big names in home networking.  The idea is that D-link already has some large, medium, and small business offerings, so the catalog is very wide.  The big money, though, is in the consumer market.  My account exec went on to tell me that they’re already working on a new consumer-level product based on the SRX; it will be marketed as a D-link device with the Juniper name on it somewhere.  I can’t wait to see a home router with Junos on it.  Think about running the Pulse client to connect back home.  Awesome!

I also learned that Juniper is going to buy the EasyShare line from Kodak.  Kodak just announced that they have already lost $200 million in the first two months of the year, so they are definitely hurting and looking to get some help after their Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.  The EasyShare line provides a way for Juniper to get themselves positioned in the video market with the rest of the big hitters.  There is no word on why they want to get into video, but the logical next step would be an enterprise video solution or maybe it’s a building block for another larger product.  We’ll have to see.

I’ll have to get my account exec a few more drinks in him the next time he’s in town.  Maybe he’ll tell me when Juniper is going to have a voice solution.  LOL

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