Juniper's expands into WLAN

Juniper is in the process of acquiring Trapeze networks in a $152 million transaction. Juniper networks has been busy in the Network Transport area behind both the Radio Access Network, as well as the backhaul Access Layer. With this acquisition, they could have a couple of things in mind.

The first thingis thatthis piecewise acquisition can be a simple add on to complete an end to end solution. Trapeze is an enterprise WLAN systems and management software vendor. Adding this to Juniper's network and telecommunications arsenal opens the door foradding an extra layer on to their solutions. They could start profiling a more tightly integrated end-to-end WLAN solution for service providers to consider. Since offloading data is such a key issue these days, offering this to service providers as an end to end solution, and not leaving the networkplanning to the service providers seems like a smart thing to do given their expertise in the subject matter.

Trapeze has an important position within the WLAN market, and it’s also associated to over 6000 customers that have invested in its mobility WLAN solutions. Further leveraging these customers to upgrading their backhaul and internal network equipment would definitely be a smart move. This could also be seen as having “a foot in the door” for their current networking equipment, as it would be easier to showcase their solutions through following up with WLAN equipment customers.

The acquired companyalso hasmanagement software as well for its WLAN specific purposes. Juniper through it'sown development platform, has theoption to providetheir own software orhave their clients and partners develop their own code for specific use to get the most out of Juniper'sproducts. Leveraging Trapeze’s software, and integrating it within their own is an added value since they could leverage thiscode, integrate it into their software. Building on the newly acquired softwareto enhance their software libraries for their clients and customers to innovate on are key value adders as well.

From many angles, thismove for Juniper seems to be a smart acquisition because of the ability for Juniper to leverageTrapeze's WLAN elements as well as their software.Juniperhas shown recently a lot of movement in expanding their solutions and market share in current areas, and with this acquisition,open up new ones. This foray into directly providing equipment for mobile offloading has a lot of potential for service providers with existing WLAN solutions, andenterprises that want to integrate WLAN. All this with the added value ofJuniper’s flexible softwaresuite at their disposition to adjust security and network management concerns and issues, amongst other applications.​