Phoenix, Ariz. – Juniper Networks CEO Kevin Johnson clearly outlined why the company, known primarily for being a networking vendor, entered the security software space.
Johnson told about 700 channel partners at its Americas Partners Conference in Arizona that the combination of more connected devices and unique malicious threats compelled the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company to make products such as the Pulse Mobility Suite.
Pulse is under the Junos brand. Junos is Juniper’s network operating system that runs most of its networking equipment. The Pulse Mobile Security Suite attempts to protect smartphones from viruses, malware, loss or theft, while supporting major mobile operating systems and apps. According to IMS Research, there is an explosion of connected devices. About five years ago there were only a billion connected devices. Today there are more than five billion and it will reach 14 billion by 2016. “There will be devices that monitor your health, automobiles and other verticals and with that comes demand for more apps. It wasn’t that long ago that people were amazed to see 500,000 downloaded apps and now we are approaching 76 billion apps by 2014,” Johnson said citing Gartner Research figures.
Connected devices provided a new challenge for Juniper (Nasdaq: JNPR) as the company believes they will be the new point of attack. Johnson said that by 2016 there will be an unbelievable 286 million new threats specifically for mobile devices, according to Symantec’s annual threat report.
Speaking to the channel opportunity for security the mobile worker, Johnson stated that the legacy network cannot meet the economic challenge of today, nor can it provide the scalability customers are looking for or security. Juniper announced that it will be investing in R&D to further the Pulse line of security products along with providing incentives and new partner marketing programs to the channel for this demand in the marketplace.
Americas channel chief Frank Vitigliano told CDN that Juniper built a channel model that can help solution providers drive margins through an up-front process rather than a relying on back end incentives. “The reason we do this is because we are not over-distributed in the marketplace,” he said.
One of the key incentives going forward for Juniper and its partners is the Opportunity Registration Program which hands out 10 per cent discounts to those solution providers who find and win new business.
The plan for Juniper is to engage with partners who are already selling security and to talk to networking solution providers because they too are aware of the security opportunity around connected devices.
“A the end of the day the same things that are important to a partner in networking or with servers and virtualization is the same. There area plenty of partners who are interested in our software and now they have a vendor who knows how to partner and can make money for them with this great opportunity and with a solid product that works,” Vitigliano said.
Tom Noonan, CEO of Joulex, a Juniper partner based out of Atlanta, is part of the new ecosystem the company is trying to build. Joulex created the Joulex Energy Management Solution, a network device that monitors and controls energy emulating from IT devices, with the Junos software development kit.
According to Noonan, 50 per cent of the energy pumped into an IT environment is wasted and the Joulex solution enables IT departments to measure the carbon consumption of IP devices on the network such as printers, storage systems and servers. The product requires no hardware changes and the dashboard is configurable to your business. “The world has a serious energy problem and we waste a lot because of IT is an always on thing and a lot of it is not needed. This is a great reason for you to call your customer with Juniper and it helps you extend your value,” he said.
At the conference, Juniper encouraged partners to start producing these types of solutions that can be resold by other partners for their local markets. The company said it’s investing in marketing and skills development for channel partners so that they can establish software practices or build onto existing software business.