By Varun Aggarwal
Juniper Networks is scouting for regional SIs to expand its reach in the country. The end-to-end network provider is looking at growing its existing base of 12 J Select partners to over 35 in the next three quarters. It is targeting tier-2 and tier-3 cities such as Ahmedabad, Pune, Kochi, Coimbatore, Jaipur and Chandigarh to achieve this growth. Juniper is also looking at strengthening its partner relationships in Kolkata.
“We have been trying to address our partners more closely and hire new partners. Now, with a strong team on board, we would be better able to address all the geographies with account managers dedicated to each region,” said Sudhindra Holla, Head, Channels, India and Saarc, Juniper Networks.
Juniper has identified the BFSI, government and defense verticals for its next wave of growth, and would look for partners with strong solutions capabilities and experience in these sectors. The company is also looking for partners with development capabilities who can help it build specific solutions for these verticals on top of a Junos platform. “We’ll offer our end-to-end networking solutions through these partners which would give them more revenue opportunities. We will also ensure that our partners get the best margins,” he added.
Juniper sees the next growth momentum coming from its new 3-2-1 data center network architecture which uses the company’s Virtual Chassis fabric technology to reduce the 3-layer data center to a 2-layer data center in order to bring down complexity and reduce power consumption.
The company’s answer to Cisco’s UCS and Brocade’s Brocade One architecture is the Stratus Project, which would be available in the market in 2011. It would reduce the 2-layer data center architecture to just one layer. The company is trying to build the basic blocks with the 3-2-1 architecture, and wants to make partners ready for network convergence before its launch. |