Juniper Takes Peribit, Redline

Taking the expected step into deeper enterprise/WAN territory, Juniper Networks Inc. (Nasdaq: JNPR) today announced not one, but two acquisitions, picking up Peribit Networks Inc. and Redline Networks Inc. (See Juniper to Buy Peribit, Redline.)

Juniper has bid $337 million and $132 million for Peribit and Redline, respectively, and the deals are expected to close in the second half of 2005.

For several quarters now, analysts have speculated on what Juniper might acquire next, figuring the company would want to strengthen its enterprise arsenal after the successful $4 billion pickup of NetScreen Technologies. A stronger enterprise portfolio would give Juniper the ammunition needed to battle Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) on its home turf (see Juniper Buys NetScreen, Juniper's Slow Shopping Trip , and Valley Wonk: Juniper's Shopping List).

It now appears those theories were pointed in the right direction, although Juniper threw the industry a curve with the surprise acquisition of session border controller vendor Kagoor Networks (see Juniper to Acquire Kagoor).

Peribit and Redline provide technology to accelerate Web and WAN applications, and both will help Juniper with its mission of becoming a "traffic processing" specialist, Juniper CEO Scott Kriens said on a conference call with analysts today.Read the full story at NDCF.

Craig Matsumoto, Senior Editor, Light Reading

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