Juniper Networks announced plans to acquire Mist Systems for approximately $405M in cash. We think this deal makes sense for Juniper, who can now sell a key technology – WLAN – into its customer base of large and medium enterprises. Valuation of the deal probably fell a bit short of the expectations of some, but the vendor landscape has already seen significant consolidation between Ethernet Switch and Enterprise-class WLAN vendors, with now just a few potential buyers and sellers.
The companies just had a call to discuss the announcement and share the following messages:
- Slightly dilutive to non gaap F19, accretive F20.
- Verticals discussed on the call: h/c, retail, mfg and distribution segments
- Key wins discussed: Large healthcare organization, Verizon Mgd SP, Walt Disney Orlando, Dartmouth College
- Business model will remain as current (60% hardware; 40% services at time of acquisition)
- No revenue numbers share
- $405M in cash; closes F2Q for JNPR
- Avoided saying who Mist competes with, other than to say Mist sees “the usual suspects”
- Mist should continue to grow because its channels will expand when Juniper acquires it
- Juniper will expand the “AI for IT” technology from Mist across the Juniper portfolio of campus switch, security and SD-WAN
- Will imminently begin 802.11ax pilots
- Last time new technology was developed for WLAN industry was over a decade ago; Mist is microservices / container based; all new
- Juniper has seen its campus switch business grow in recent times
- Will share more numbers in the future