Antonio Neri: HPE Is ‘Becoming A Networking Company At Its Core,’ Something ‘Cisco Has Forgotten’

'Once the Juniper transaction closes, we're going to have another business that looks like this: $11 billion in revenues. It will represent more than one-third of the company revenues. It will represent probably 50 percent of the company profits,' says HPE CEO Antonio Neri.

CEO Antonio Neri said networking is becoming the core of HPE thanks to its pending $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks and its new Aruba networking global sales offensive, as HPE seeks to win more market share from rival Cisco.

“We are becoming a networking company at the core. Something that probably Cisco has forgotten now for a little bit,” said Neri at the 2024 XChange Best of Breed Conference today in Atlanta. “And I think that's the big opportunity, which ultimately is to give customers a more modern, AI-driven experience at the networking level.”

Neri said HPE’s blockbuster purchase of Juniper is “potentially weeks away [from completion] if you think about the end of calendar [year] 2024, early calendar [year] 2025,” giving his $30 billion company a serious boost in sales and profits from the networking business.

“Once the Juniper transaction closes, we're going to have another business that looks like this: $11 billion in revenues. It will represent more than one-third of the company revenues. It will represent probably 50 percent of the company profits,” said HPE’s CEO.

Antonio Neri: There’s ‘No Overlap’ Between Juniper And HPE Products

Neri said HPE and Juniper don’t share an overlapping product portfolio, which bodes well for its market share battle against Cisco in the global networking landscape.

“Juniper gets access to scale [and] a much larger sales force. And obviously, to be able to serve all customer segments. People sometimes get a little bit confused [saying] there's overlap. Actually, there is no overlap,” said Neri.

For example, he said HPE “never did anything at the networking level” in the service provider space.

“We were not in the routing business there. Obviously [with Juniper] that's an upside for us,” he said.

Other examples of certain networking markets or customers HPE traditionally hasn’t played a lot in is the campus and branch space, which is where Juniper excels.

“You think about the campus and branch, HPE built an amazing business with HPE-Aruba Networking, but really at the top end of the enterprise and more against Cisco. And when you look at Juniper Mist [AI], they build an amazing solution that's more AI-driven,” Neri said.

“So don't think that HPE and Juniper against each other. Think, HPE plus Juniper against the multiple architectures we have in the market with Cisco,” he said.

‘HPE Is Good At Not Staying Comfortable’

For Juniper partners, Neri said channel partners will be able to sell a much “bigger portfolio than ever imagined before.”

“If you think about end of calendar 2024 or early calendar 2025, to get this [acquisition] done and inside the business, it will support all types of customers—from service providers both telco and clouds, from enterprises of all sizes, from the campus and branch to data center switching, and then in the core data center,” he said. “Then obviously the campus and branch solution with Wi-Fi, software, firefalls, networks and security.”

Paul Shaffer, executive vice president of Austin, Texas-based solution provider Redapt, said acquiring Juniper was a bold move for HPE to increase market share against the competition.

“Acquiring Juniper is great from a networking perspective, because we do have a pretty strong Juniper business as well. If they can plug that into just their data center infrastructure business, then it'll work out great,” said Shaffer.

Shaffer said HPE under Neri has made “some of the best strategic acquisitions” in the tech industry over the years.

“HPE is good at not staying comfortable. Neri’s made some great acquisitions, you saw that with Aruba. He's made some really great acquisitions to add the portfolio maybe where there are gaps in the product lines or solutions,” Shaffer said.

“In the tech world, you can't stay still,” he said. “You have to make these types of serious investments to place your bets on. I’m excited for HPE and Juniper.”

Neri, for his part, said he’s bullish a combined HPE-Juniper company will best the competition in the market.

“This is the first time in the history of both HP and HPE that the company will have the full intellectual property stack—from silicon to the infrastructure to the operating system, through the software services and security, to provide that modern edge-to-cloud networking fabric,” Neri said.