Partners: HPE Victory In Court Battle To Acquire Juniper Would Benefit Customers

'This is a pivotal moment for HPE,’ said C.R. Howdyshell, CEO of Advizex, a Fulcrum IT Partners company. ‘It is critical to their future to achieve their aspiration of being an AI network company. This deal would benefit HPE, its partners and, most importantly, customers. With the Juniper acquisition, HPE can finally come to the table with a full portfolio to compete against Cisco.’

Top Hewlett Packard Enterprise partners gathered this week for HPE’s annual Discover conference maintain that an HPE victory in the court battle against the U.S. Department of Justice to acquire Juniper Networks would benefit them and their customers.

In fact, HPE partners say a decision in HPE’s favor in the court case, which starts July 9 in the U.S. Court for the Northern District of California, would spark more innovation in AI networking and provide a much more formidable competitor to longtime networking market leader Cisco Systems.

“This is a pivotal moment for HPE,” said C.R. Howdyshell, CEO of Advizex, No. 129 on the CRN 2025 Solution Provider 500, a Fulcrum IT Partners company. “It is critical to their future to achieve their aspiration of being an AI network company. This deal would benefit HPE, its partners and, most importantly, customers. With the Juniper acquisition, HPE can finally come to the table with a full portfolio to compete against Cisco. This provides a viable alternative to Cisco in the networking AI era.”

Howdyshell said he sees the deal sparking more AI innovation in the networking market with a combined HPE-Juniper bringing a full portfolio of AI-powered networking solutions to market as an alternative to Cisco.

“Customers want an alternative,” he said. “They want options. This deal allows HPE to give customers the full benefit of AI networking with Juniper Mist. HPE has proven what they can do with Aruba. If they execute with the same success with Juniper, then the sky is the limit. With our networking, services and pay-per-use consumption expertise, HPE-Juniper really fits well into our long-term strategy.”

CRN reached out to Cisco for comment but had not heard back at press time.

HPE announced its $14 billion acquisition of Juniper on Jan. 9, 2024. One year and three weeks later, the U.S. Justice Department sued to block the deal, which was approved by 14 other international regulators including the European Commission.

HPE and Juniper have called the lawsuit, which zeros in on the wireless networking market, “fundamentally flawed.”

Dan O’Brien, chief solutions officer for Presidio, No. 24 on the CRN 2025 Solution Provider 500, said he is excited about the possibility of a combined HPE-Juniper providing another “at-scale technology platform” that would deliver value to customers. “When you get that kind of competition, it is better for customers,” he said.

Juniper would give HPE an “incredibly elegant AI operations platform that drives a ton of simplicity” in network management with quick proactive problem resolution. “We see that benefit in the number of staff that our customers use to manage the network,” he said.

“Juniper has a better foothold in the data center where HPE has struggled,” he said. “This brings together the [Juniper] AI platform on top of the unbelievable tools and access points from Aruba. If they are able to pull this together engineering-wise, I think it is a home run for customers.”

Many Juniper customers, O’Brien said, are holding off on making Juniper purchases until the pending court case is resolved. “They want to see what happens and what the future road map may look like,” he said.

Dan Molina, co-president and CTO of Nth Generation, San Diego, No. 307 on the 2025 CRN Solution Provider 500, said HPE’s acquisition of Juniper would spark increased innovation in the AI networking market, which would be “beneficial” for customers.

“Allowing this transaction would actually promote innovation,” he said. “Juniper has a great deal of AI capabilities [that] would integrate well with Aruba, which also has powerful AI capabilities. The outcome would be better network services for customers with increased productivity. I hope the court does their homework and gets clarity on the real facts surrounding this acquisition.”

Pat O’Dell, managing partner at Clinton, N.J.-based CPP Associates, one of HPE’s top enterprise partners, said customers are “excited” about a combined HPE-Juniper.

“This would add new networking and AI solution sets that would move the needle for HPE,” said O’Dell. “Giving our customers more valid solutions that are supported by one world-class organization is always a good thing. Cisco is formidable. They are the market leader in many segments. All this deal would do is allow HPE to better compete on all fronts.”

Bob Panos, president of American Digital, Schaumburg, Ill., No. 329 on the 2025 CRN Solution Provider 500, said HPE’s acquisition of Juniper would open the door for his company to become a bigger force in the data center networking market, which is dominated by Cisco.

“That’s a huge opportunity,” he said. “A lot of us, like HPE, are confused as to why the Justice Department brought this case. The 800-pound gorilla is Cisco. They are the company that is going to benefit if this deal doesn’t go through.”

Panos said the deal would also increase America’s competitiveness against China- based networking behemoth Huawei.

“Huawei is a big threat,” he said. “Why not make a company like HPE stronger with Juniper so they could compete better against Huawei?”

Rob Schaeffer, president and CRO of e360, a top HPE partner based in Concord, Calif., No. 138 on the 2025 CRN Solution Provider 500, said he is also hoping HPE is able to complete the acquisition of Juniper. “I think it would be great for everybody,” he said.

HPE has been resolute in its determination to see the deal through and is optimistic that the court will side with the company.

HPE President and CEO Antonio Neri told CRN earlier this month that the legal discovery process in the court case gives him “more confidence” that HPE can win the case.

“Look, there is public information now with [legal] discovery with public filings,” said Neri in an interview with CRN. “Basically, that gives us even more confidence that we think we can win this case. Now you have to go to court and go through the process. But nothing has changed from what we have been saying for a number of months since January when they filed the claim.”

HPE Worldwide Channel and Partner Ecosystem leader Simon Ewington, for his part, said HPE intends to integrate the Juniper channel program into its new unified Partner Ready Vantage program.

“The intent is the Juniper channel organization will also be integrated into the organization we have already created,” said Ewington. “We created it with that in mind. We will still have one slightly broader worldwide channel and partner ecosystem organization when the acquisition closes.”