JUNIPER IN A FIX OVER DATA CENTER PORTFOLIO ROW

Juniper has declined to accept that all is not well with its QFabric product line. Reports claimed that Juniper had reduced a large workforce from some of its units. It said that Juniper reportedly sacked 500 workers, about 5% of the headcount.

“Our actions to reduce operating expenses fall across our support functions, including supply chain, procurement, SG&A, as well as R&D,” a Juniper spokesperson said this week. “They are being carefully planned and managed to maximize efficiencies in our cost structure while preserving the investments in innovation in our core businesses of data center, routing, switching and security.”

The spokesperson confirmed that the speculation about the workforce reduction affecting the QFabric line is baseless.

“We are committed to our QFabric business and product innovation roadmap, and we are continuing to add both hardware and software functionality to the QFabric roadmap,” the spokesperson added. “We are pleased with the momentum of QFabric.”

Juniper consists of about 200 customers in its QFabric line, but the company has decided to stay away from questions from the press. It has remained quiet, when asked about how many customers are using the full node/interconnect fabric system. Most of them use QFX3500 node as a top-of-rack switch.

R.K. Anand, one of Junipers first employees and key engineers of the company’s silicon and software unit, quit as the head of   Juniper’s Data Center Business Unit last month, and took up the advisory role to the CEO. Sources say most of the product line managers were affected by the recent lay-off.

Jonathan Davidson replaced Anand, who also looks after the campus and business branch units.

“The switching business is healthy, we will continue to support that line of business,” the spokesperson said.

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