At Juniper You Can Smell Channel Opportunity

It is always entertaining to watch companies once completely reliant on smooth-talking, clean-shaven direct sales professionals make the transition to an indirect sales strategy. It's like watching your grandparents come to grips with how to program the VCR or use a digital answering machine. They fumble through at first but eventually get it. We all witnessed a number of large computer companies go through such profound direct to indirect transitions, including IBM, Computer Associates and, most recently, EMC.

Some of these companies stuck their toes in the water to acquaint themselves with the channel. Others treated their entrance in the channel the way two good boxers feel each other out in the first round of a title fight—no one really lands any blows, but they dance around the ring while thinking through their strategies. It is rare for companies to dive right into the channel waters, but witness $1 billion Juniper Networks (its current run-rate for the year) growing at 65 percent. If Las Vegas had odds, I would have bet Steve Jobs would become a Windows evangelist sooner than Juniper would find channel religion. But after a series of meetings with Juniper's worldwide partner executive Tushar Kothari, his North American channel chief Bob Bruce and a budding band of channel directors who work for him, I am convinced this company is serious about the channel. In fact, you can smell channel when you walk through the doors at Juniper's headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif. This is in part because Juniper has embraced NetScreen's channel mentality after it acquired the security company. But wander the halls, and you will stumble upon more former Cisco employees than you can shake a router at. (And there are more coming if you check the resumes in the HR department.)

These individuals are all intent on transforming the culture inside Juniper to one that is more open to partnering and friendly to solution providers. Their goal is to position Juniper as the only viable alternative to Cisco in the networking infrastructure market and one that is more eager and less arrogant (their description, not mine). Juniper insiders cling to the credo that it is easier for their company to move down market than for Cisco, which must meet Juniper on the high end of the routing market to move upstream. The argument makes for a good sound bite, but is not entirely accurate. It seems that Juniper is moving down market to meet Cisco in the sweet spot of the enterprise market, while Cisco is bringing higher-end infrastructure products to market along with gear more suited to SMB VARs. Juniper also believes Avaya, Enterasys, 3Com and others have failed miserably in their attempts to challenge Cisco.

Juniper claims it has successfully integrated several hundred NetScreen security-oriented partners into its fold who are ready and willing to recommend Juniper's networking gear, including its J-series routers. It has rolled out an impressive J-Partner channel program to attract a broad cross-section of integrators and service providers who can carry everything from low-end routers to its high-end T-series and secure access gear. To support its new program, Juniper also expanded its relationship with distributor Ingram Micro, which will take the lead in recruiting new partners and helping Juniper penetrate new markets. Juniper's early moves are to be applauded. Still, some of the verbiage in its presentation, such as "value vs. volume," sounds Ciscoesque.

Juniper can have channel cola flowing out of its hallway water fountains, but it is still going to have to convince Cisco integrators to recommend its products. That might have been a much easier task several years ago when the overall market was growing robustly. Today, this is more about shifting market share from one brand to another. Cisco is going to make life difficult for any VAR who goes out on a limb for Juniper. But then again, the solution provider is going to have to make a choice. Either way, it is going to be fun to watch Cisco's channel chief Paul Mountford spar against his old crony Kothari.

Read my online column, which has more information about GE's IT distribution business and a sneak peek at our State of the Market findings. E-mail me at [email protected].