HPE to acquire Juniper Networks for $14 billion in cash, in a move to bolster its AI networking credentials.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise, a veteran of the tech industry, has confirmed a multi billion dollar acquisition of Juniper Networks.
HPE announced that Juniper has agreed to be acquired in an all-cash transaction for $40.00 per share, making the deal worth approximately $14 billion.
That purchase price is a 32.4 percent premium to the stock's close on Monday, before the deal was revealed.
To put that in English, HPE's networking business is the division that in its latest quarter delivered the fastest growth, and the acquisition will allow HPE to exploit Juniper's network security and AI-enabled enterprise networking offerings.
The acquisition will also help HPE better challenge networking powerhouse Cisco Systems.
HPE noted the explosion of AI and hybrid cloud-driven business is accelerating demand for secure, unified technology solutions that connect, protect, and analyse companies' data from edge to cloud.
It said that these trends, and AI specifically, will continue to be the most disruptive workloads for companies, and HPE has been aligning its portfolio to capitalise on these substantial IT trends with networking as a critical connective component.
Juniper CEO Rami Rahim will lead the combined HPE networking business, reporting to HPE President and CEO Antonio Neri.
There is no word yet as to the job implications for the staff at HPE and Juniper.
Hewlett-Packard is regarded as one of the founding companies of California's tech homeland of Silicon Valley, after being founded in 1939 in a Palo Alto garage.
HPE itself was created in the 2015 split of Hewlett-Packard, which saw HPE concentrating on enterprise software and networking, whereas HP focused on making PCs, laptops and printers.
Since then HPE has mostly avoided making large acquisitions, although it did purchase veteran supercomputer maker Cray Inc for $1.3bn back in 2019.
In December 2020 HPE announced it was leaving California and moved its headquarters to Texas.
This Cyber News was published on www.silicon.co.uk. Publication date: Wed, 10 Jan 2024 12:43:05 +0000