Juniper Networks on April 19 reported a 26 percent revenue rise to $566.7 million for its first quarter of 2006, but its earnings per share remained flat at 13 cents.
Juniper generated net income of $75.8 million in the first quarter, compared to $75.4 million in the same quarter last year.
Junipers continued thrust into the enterprise reaped it 40 percent growth in revenue for the quarter, compared to a smaller increase of 10 percent for service provider revenue.
Highlights for the quarter within Junipers service provider business included large wins with China Telecom Shanghai and Cox Communications, which both chose Junipers T-series routers to beef up their core IP infrastructures.
Also, British Telecom selected Juniper core and edge products in building out its next generation network.
On the enterprise side, the Sunnyvale, Calif., company saw a big win with Sharper Image, which will deploy Junipers firewall/IPSec Virtual Private Networks, SSL VPNs and WX WAN optimization appliances.
Other big enterprise wins include Sara Lee, Daimler Chrysler and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
/zimages/3/28571.gifRead morehereabout rival Cisco Systems most recent quarterly report.
Product wise, Juniper launched during the first quarter its new Secure Services Gateway, with “world-class security technology and WAN routing functions integrated,” said CEO Scott Kriens.
“It has had a very good ramp in the first month and a half of Q1. It exceeded our expectations for units ordered and shipped,” he added.
Between Juniper core and edge network products, the company saw “some revenue softness” at the edge and “saw significant growth in the core,” Kriens said.
About one-third of Juniper business for the quarter came from enterprise customers rather than service providers.
Routers sold to enterprises during the quarter saw similar growth compared to the fourth quarter in the low double digits.
During the quarter, Juniper also saw significant changes among its executives, including the departure in January of Jim Dolce, who had led Junipers Worldwide Field Operations.
Juniper replaced Dolce with sales executive Eddie Minshull and at the same time named Jeff Lindholm as chief marketing officer.
In that shuffle, Juniper also saw the departure of Jef Graham, executive vice president of its newly formed Application Products Group.
Juniper named former Cisco executive Paulette Altmaier, to take Grahams place. Juniper also added former IBM channels executive Frank J. Vitagliano as its new vice president of worldwide channels.
He replaced departing channel executive Tushar Kothari. Juniper also appointed Spencer Greene as executive vice president of corporate development, replacing outgoing executive George Riedel.
For the second quarter, Juniper expects to generate revenue of between $560 million and $570 million, which represents 14 to 16 percent growth over the second quarter of 2005.
Non-GAAP earnings per share are expected to come in at 19 cents. Juniper declined to forecast GAAP earnings for the second quarter.
Juniper also expects to launch a steady stream of new products emanating from its $400 million in R&D spending.
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