Juniper Reports Near-Doubling of Revenue

Networking hardware and security solutions firm Juniper Networks Inc. yesterday reported that it met its forecasted operating results for the second quarter, recording revenue of $306.9 million and a small GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) loss of $12.6 million. The quarterly revenue represented a jump of 86 percent over last year's second-quarter figure of $165.1 million.

Most of the increase flowed from Juniper's existing networking equipment business.

About $50 million in revenues were realized from the acquisition of Netscreen Technologies, Inc., the developer of network security and access solutions whose acquisition by Juniper was completed on April 16. Juniper Chairman and CEO Scott Kriens said that Netscreen's staff, systems and operations have been fully integrated into Juniper, and that the integration was completed "on budget, ahead of schedule and ahead of plan."

Citing its cash flow and the strength of its business, Juniper also announced its board of directors' approval for a stock repurchase of as much as $250 million, which Kriens said reflected the company's confidence in its "cash-generating capabilities."

In the U.S. market, which accounts for about one-half of Juniper's sales, the company reported sale of routers and security products to a number of service providers and enterprises, including USLEC, Stanford University, Time Warner, and several others. Juniper said the second-quarter revenues represented the fifth consecutive quarter of growth in U.S.-derived revenues.Looking forward, Juniper is expecting growth and transformation in the networking industry as it adapts to a "new equilibrium" represented by initiatives such as Infranet, an effort Juniper is spearheading through its creation of the Infranet Council in April. Along with supporters BT, HP, Oracle, Qwest and others, Juniper sees the infranet concept as fostering a universally available, completely interconnected network based on industry standards and delivering security, quality of service (QoS), and bandwidth using a single-packet infrastructure.

Looking at more near-term business opportunities, Kriens said Juniper is targeting four "areas of opportunity:" applications, devices, network processing and physical transport.

While more or less distinct today, Juniper sees these markets and the products and services developed to address these needs for customers as "blurring."

Based on its optimism about these markets and its current position, Juniper is projecting third-quarter revenues of $366-370 million, with a gross operating margin of about 70 percent.

In other Juniper news, yesterday Microsoft Corp. named Juniper as one of more than 25 industry partners who have signed on to Microsoft's Network Access Protection (NAP), an extensible, standards-based technology for securing enterprise networks. George Riedel, vice president of strategy and corporate development at Juniper said that, using NAP, Juniper will further the integration of user, application and network policy and enforcement.0