Juniper focuses on high performance networking

Focusing on its high performance network products, investing in brand
building exercises and further tapping the enterprise segment were some of the
key strategies outlined by Juniper Networks during the J-Partner Summit held in
Goa from May 26-28, 2009.

Having registered a 24 percent growth in revenues for the entire APAC region,
Juniper will now help its select and reseller partners to graduate to the elite
level, wherein the partners will focus more on high performance networking.
Juniper partners, including resellers and select ones, have been focusing only
on individual products and solutions. However, the vendor has now taken a
conscious decision to help these partners graduate to elite level, wherein they
do not restrict themselves only to technology or managed service providing,
con­sulting and implemen­tation, but also obtain the combined competency of
technology and service offerings. Currently, 10 percent of Juniper's partners
are selling its entire product portfolio and the vendor is also looking at
tapping the remaining 90 percent. Juniper will now increase its partner base by
another 10 percent.

Sanjiv Verma, Director-Enterprise & Channel Sales, Asean & India, Juniper
mentioned, “We will continue to invest in partner programs in order to help our
partners grow from being a mere technology partner to a combination of
technology and service partner. We currently have around 120 reseller partners
and 100 service partners in India. We are looking at having the least number of
partners to cater to both the enterprise and service provider segment, and will
add no more than 10 percent of the partners to our current partner base.”

Additionally, the vendor is also looking at training partners to offer a host
of business solutions.

“The incremental cost when it comes to offering more to an existing partner
as opposed to making a new one is less, and hence we will enable our partners to
offer a gamut of solutions and products that will reduce TCO for their existing
customers and help the partners retain them. The way we are differentiating
ourselves from competitors is that we are offering customers the right tools and
services, and have also made additions to our existing portfolio,” added Sanjay
Jotshi, Director-Enterprise & Channels, India & SAARC, Juniper.

Jotshi further elaborated that in view of the global meltdown, the buyer has
changed and the CFOs are making the imperative IT decisions. The partners thus
need to take the solutions approach and extend business benefits to its
customers.

Juniper will also invest heavily into the R&D activities in India, given that
the company is looking at strengthening its position in the router, switching
and security space.

While in the routing space, the company has recently added SRX 100, SRX 210,
SRX 240 and SRX 650, in the switching space the company has added EX 8216 and EX
8208 in order to cater to the SMB and mid-market enterprises.

Giving an insight into their plans, Nagendra Venkaswamy, MD-India and SAARC,
Juniper mentioned, “The addressable market size when it comes to switching,
routing and security is around $12 billion for the APAC region. In addition,
when it comes to services, business integration, consulting and support services
are some of the areas which opens number of opportunities before the partners.
The market size in here is around of $36 billion. Keeping the above in mind, we
are eying the enterprise segment and will strengthen our position in the market
further. We will also invest a further $400 million into the R&D activities that
will include hiring more people and strengthening the proof of concept labs we
have in Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi.”

In order to enable their partners further, Juniper will impart training to
its partners through the enhanced partner program and will offer certifications
around advanced network infrastructure, network infrastructure and advanced
security.

(The author was hosted in Goa by Juniper)