DoJ clears HPE to buy Juniper if it sells Instant On Wi-Fi and licenses some code

Which it will, happily, to create a networking biz that’s still far smaller than Cisco’s or Nvidia’s

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has cleared the way for HPE’s $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks.

The DoJ announced its approval in a Saturday missive that explained regulators will allow the deal – and drop a lawsuit opposing it – if HPE divests its Instant On business and conducts an auction to license the source code for Juniper’s AI Ops for Mist.

Instant On sells Wi-Fi kit for branch offices and campuses. AI Ops for Mist is a tool that applies artificial intelligence to network management chores.

HPE welcomed the deal. A company announcement featured CEO and president Antonio Neri promising customers will enjoy “greater competition in the global networking market” while shareholders can look forward to the deal helping HPE to accelerate growth “in the AI data center, service provider and cloud segments.”

Juniper’s FY 2024 revenue was $5.07 billion, trailing Arista’s $7 billion, and a long way adrift of Cisco’s $53.8 billion. Nvidia has also emerged as a major networking player, clocking up around $15 billion in annual sales.

HPE doesn’t detail networking revenue, but counts most of it in a segment it calls “Intelligent Edge” that won $4.5 billion of revenue in FY 2024 – an $852 million year-on-year decline.

If the combined Juniper and HPE grow a little, they could together earn $10 billion of networking revenue this year to become the number three player in the datacenter market.

HPE last week outlined its plan to use AI to auto-magically manage its existing Aruba networking gear and has often expressed a desire to ride the AI wave to higher growth in the field. It can now make that attempt with a portfolio that spans routing, switching, and wireless, and has proven prowess on the enterprise LAN, the cloud, and on carrier networks.

Cisco can match HPE in those fields and also plans to make AI-powered management the future of its networks.

HPE announced its plan to acquire Juniper in January 2024. The saga has a while to run as the DoJ set a 180-day deadline for the sale of HPE’s Instant On business, and it always takes a while for lawyers and finance folk to tie up all the loose ends on a big takeover of this sort.

Once that’s all sorted, the next steps usually include the announcement of new executive leadership, a round of layoffs as merging companies eliminate personnel overlaps, followed by a reveal of plans to combine product ranges. ®