HPE Nears Approval for $14bn Juniper Networks Acquisition
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) is expected to secure unconditional EU antitrust approval for its US$14bn acquisition of networking hardware company Juniper Networks, as the company aims to expand its AI and data centre offerings.
The deal was first announced by HPE in January, reflecting the company’s desire to return to large-scale deal-making in the wake of a sharp decline in merger and acquisition activity in 2023. The move comes after a successive line of other high-profile acquisitions in the IT market, notably Cisco’s acquisition of Splunk in September 2023.
Juniper Networks acquisition to expand HPE networking offering
HPE already offers secure and agile servers, storage, networking and management services that aim to provide a consistent experience and economic control across hybrid cloud data centre infrastructures.
The company views hybrid cloud solutions as being able to help businesses accelerate digital transformation efforts by harnessing the power of data from the edge to core to cloud. Its core infrastructure is designed to enable scale, performance, security, agility and economic efficiency to support any workload.
The company views hybrid cloud solutions as being able to help businesses accelerate digital transformation efforts by harnessing the power of data from the edge to core to cloud. Its core infrastructure is designed to enable scale, performance, security, agility and economic efficiency to support any workload.
Our objective is to better address customer challenges by integrating two of the most innovative and competitive organisations in the networking industry and disrupt the status quo.
The company has already supported AI data centre endeavours, notably the VMware Private AI Foundation with NVIDIA, which is also supported by Dell Technologies and Lenovo. The goal of the foundation is to more seamlessly integrate AI into data centres by delivering real-time insights for accelerated business outcomes.
“Our objective is to better address customer challenges by integrating two of the most innovative and competitive organisations in the networking industry and disrupt the status quo,” Antonio Neri, HPE President and CEO, said in a blog highlighting the aims of the acquisition. “Our combined business will create a new full-service networking company, with a customer-centric approach to product development and a comprehensive portfolio that delivers value for our customers.
“We are pursuing this acquisition because we believe the combination of HPE and Juniper Networks will radically change the networking industry – not by eliminating products from either portfolio – but by creating greater choice in this sector. The incredible thing about a combination like this one is that there are strong offerings on both sides and by bringing them together, we will be accelerating value and flexibility for all of our customers.”
Juniper Networks, meanwhile, offers a range of service offerings, including routing, switching, Wi-Fi, network security, AI-enabled enterprise networking operations (AIOps) and software-defined networking (SDN) technologies.
The company already provides solutions for AI data centre networking to optimise data centres for AI and machine learning workloads. Its solutions confront the challenge of increased data demand with high-capacity networking fabrics that aim to deliver the highest AI performance.
“Our multi-year focus on innovative secure AI-native solutions has driven Juniper Networks’ outstanding performance,” Rami Rahim, CEO of Juniper Networks, said at the time of the announcement. “We have successfully delivered exceptional user experiences and simplified operations, and by joining HPE, I believe we can accelerate the next phase of our journey. In addition, this combination maximises value for our shareholders through a meaningful all-cash premium. We look forward to working with the talented HPE team to drive innovation for enterprise, service provider and cloud customers across all domains, including campus, branch, data centre and the wide area network.”
If approved, the acquisition is expected to close by early 2025.
******
Make sure you check out the latest edition of Technology Magazine and also sign up to our global conference series - Tech & AI LIVE 2024
******
Technology Magazine is a BizClik brand
