JUNIPER: "With infranet, we are moving beyond commodity networkin

In 1996, Scott Kriens left networking company Stratacom and joined Juniper
Networks as chairman and CEO. Three months after he left Stratacom, Cisco
Systems took over Stratacom. But that did not mean his rivalry with Cisco was
about to be let up. In 2003, he restored profitability to Juniper. In 2004 he
took Cisco head on in the field of security products with the acquisition of
Netscreen. Rajiv Seth of VOICE&DATA met up with Kriens to discuss Juniper's
strategy and increased focus on enterprise: Excerpts from the interview:

You recently had one of the best quarters in your history. Your share
price is now above $25. Juniper grew its share faster in the second quarter of
this year in the high-end, service-provider router market than rival Cisco. Have
things stabilised in the industry?

Yes, we have been steadily gaining market share and over a period of time
our market share is showing a positive trend.

How different are things for you now, since you have come up with many new
networking products and are targeting the enterprises as well apart from service
providers? What is your enterprise strategy?

Juniper Network's vision is for a new public network that combines the
ubiquitous connectivity of Internet with the assured performance and security of
a private network. Known as infranet initiative, the vision will enable service
providers, enterprise, governments, and research and educational institutes to
address any-to-any application demand within commercially sustainable
architecture. The result of this approach will expand the overall communications
market. With infranet, we are moving beyond commodity networking.

Do you see Juniper emerging as another Cisco in a few years time? Would
Juniper offer everything for the network like Cisco does today?

We would like to change the customer business models by delivering
sophisticated intelligence at scale via a platform designed for performance
networking.

With the NetScreen acquisition, Juniper got a foothold in the network
security market and thereby the enterprise market as well. Which are the other
areas that you are looking at apart from security?

We have recently acquired Netscreen and are in the process of integrating
the two companies and the offerings. We shall look at the areas that fit into
our strategic vision. We would like to move very aggressively as we have hired
the best talent available to spearhead this move.

You spent around 30 percent of your revenue on R&D even when your
profits were zero. How did you manage to do that? How has this paid off?

We have been generating surplus cash at the rate of a million dollars a day
and we could afford to invest in the R&D. That is paying off now.

How do you see India as a market for Juniper?

We see India as a major market. Besides, we would like to leverage the
strength of Indian software developers to establish a major research center, at
the already established center in Bangalore.