Juniper Networks is adding key wireless capabilities to its networking lineup by acquiring Trapeze Networks.
Juniper, a growing rival to Cisco Systems in the
expanding networking space, announced Nov. 16 that it is buying Trapeze
for $152 million from its parent company, Belden. The deal is expected
to close before the end of the year.
Juniper officials said the addition of Trapeze’s
wireless LAN technology will be a key additon to their portfolio and
help drive the company’s push into the enterprise space. Trapeze’s WLAN
offerings will complement Juniper’s routing, campus and branch
switching, and security businesses, enabling Juniper to meet the demand
for anywhere, anytime connectivity.
“One of the key challenges facing enterprises today is how to
improve their users’ experience and increase their productivity,
regardless of location or device,” David Yen, executive vice president
and general manager of Juniper’s fabric and switching technologies
business, said in a blog post.
“At the same time, enterprises are seeking to simplify their networks
and reduce TCO while ensuring end-to-end security. Our goal is to
enable our customers to provide seamless, high-quality secure
connectivity to key network services, regardless of where, when or how
they access their networks. By making WLAN infrastructure a key part of
our portfolio, we plan to accelerate Juniper’s growth in the enterprise
market and deliver on a complete vision for the new network.”
Through the acquisition, Juniper will gain Trapeze’s Smart Mobile
WLAN architecture, which Juniper officials said offers enterprises
greater flexbility in their networking infrastructures in both
centralized and distributed environments. Businesses can adopt 802.11n
networks, scale their WLANs in the enterprise both indoors and out, and
offer high-quality voice services to hundreds of users.
Among the products Juniper will acquire are Trapeze’s Mobility
System software, Mobility Exchange controllers, Mobility Point access
points, SmartPass access control solution, RingMaster wireless
management suite, and a host of antennas, accessories, and
location-based software and appliances.
The Trapeze technology will dovetail well with
Juniper’s efforts to simplify the network for enterprises, Yen said in
his blog post. Juniper last year unveiled a strategy to flatten the data center network in
an effort to streamline the infrastructure and enable enterprises to
provide better service to their employees, drive down costs and improve
productivity. Key parts of the effort include the Junos Pulse mobile security offerings,
announced in February and bulked up in October, and Junos Space, a
development and deployment platform the company first rolled out in
October 2009.
“Combined with Juniper’s Junos Pulse to help
provide a seamless and secure user experience and Junos Space to
simplify and automate the tasks of operating the network, the result
will be a better delivered user experience at a lower cost,” Yen wrote.
“We believe that Juniper’s strong history of technology execution
combined with Trapeze’s accomplished team ideally positions us to
deliver end-to-end high-performance networking for the world’s most
demanding networks.”
Juniper’s acquisition comes at a time when
networking vendors are aggressively building out their offerings as
more enterprises move toward a converged data center infrastructure,
which rely heavily on a strong networking backbone. Mobility will be a
key part of the picture, as businesses are looking to enable their
increasingly mobile workforce the capabilities to easily and securely
access their networks from anywhere and through multiple devices. For
example, Cisco has put its efforts under the “Borderless Networks”
initiative.
Extreme Networks also is making similar inroads,
and Hewlett-Packard has rapidly expanded its reach through the
acquisition earlier this year of 3Com.
Market research firm Dell'Oro Group is predicting
that the enterprise WLAN technology market will hit $2.2 billion this
year and grow to $3.4 billion by 2014.
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