[VPN] NetScreen / Juniper

[Travis Watson]

Pete,

Others have commented on this and I agree with what they've said largely, but 
for my 2 cents...

Juniper does very well with the ISPs and big portals, not much anywhere else.  
They bought Netscreen not just for the security aspect, but because they can 
absorb their reseller channels.  Plus, they're both ASIC companies, so they 
can barrow from each other in development.

For Netscreen, the advantage is that they can be associated with a company 
that is known for high-end routing and a company that already has their hooks 
in some big carriers.  Netscreen has always been afraid of Cisco (rightly so) 
and this gives them some cushion.

Juniper/Netscreen still has a looooong way to go if they want to seriously 
compete with Cisco (i.e. edge routers, edge switches, wireless), but this 
merger gets them much closer.  And, with this merger, I would say that it's 
the final death blow to any firewall not on ASIC or running a 
micro-kernel/controller architecture.  So the question isn't really "should I 
put an investment in Netscreen or Cisco?" but "should I put an investment 
into any company that is not Netscreen or Cisco?"  I just can't imagine how 
Checkpoint, Sidewinder, etc. can be viable products 5 years from now unless 
they significantly re-architect their systems very soon.

As for Netscreen/Juniper, they aren't leaving anytime soon.

Regards,

Travis



On Monday 01 March 2004 10:42 am, Pete Jacob wrote:
> Hello,
>
> we have a few NetScreen routers, mainly smaller ones,
> we are looking at getting some larger NetScreen routers
> but I am concerned about the Juniper buy out..
>
> I am not real sure about Juniper... I don't know much about them.
>
> Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
>
> Thanks
>
> Pete.
>
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