in sunnyvale type public traded as nyse jnpr industry networking equipment founded february 6 1996 ; 20 years ago 1996 02 06 founder pradeep sindhu headquarters sunnyvale california united states key people scott kriens chairman pradeep sindhu vice chairman & cto rami rahim ceo products routers switches security and software revenue us 4.85 billion 2015 1 operating income us 912 million 2015 1 net income us 633 million 2015 1 number of employees 9 058 2015 2 website www.juniper.net juniper networks is an american multinational corporation headquartered in sunnyvale california that develops and markets networking products . its products include routers switches network management software network security products and software defined networking technology . juniper was founded in 1996 by pradeep sindhu . the company received several rounds of funding from venture capitalists and telecommunications companies before going public in 1999 . juniper grew to 673 million in annual revenues by 2000 . by 2001 it had a 37 percent share of the core routers market challenging cisco s once dominant market share . 3 4 it grew to 4 billion in revenues by 2004 and 4.63 billion in 2014 . juniper appointed kevin johnson as ceo in 2008 shaygan kheradpir in 2013 and rami rahim in 2014 . juniper networks originally focused on core routers which are used by internet service providers isps to perform ip address lookups and direct internet traffic . through the acquisition of unisphere in 2002 juniper entered the market for edge routers which are used by isps to route internet traffic to individual consumers . juniper entered the it security market with its own jprotect security toolkit in 2003 before acquiring security company netscreen technologies the following year . it entered the enterprise segment in the early 2000s which accounted for one third of revenues by 2005 . as of 2014 juniper has been focused on developing new software defined networking products . however in 2016 the company encountered some controversy under suspicion allegedly putting backdoors into its screenos products . contents 1 history 1.1 origins and funding 1.2 growth and ipo 1.3 competition 1.4 further development 1.5 2008 present 2 acquisitions and investments 3 products 3.1 routers and switches 3.2 security 3.3 software defined networking 3.4 recent updates 4 operations 5 references 6 external links history edit origins and funding edit juniper founder pradeep sindhu juniper networks was founded in february 1996 5 by pradeep sindhu 6 a scientist with xerox s palo alto research center parc . 7 he conceived the idea for juniper while on vacation in 1995 . 8 at the time most routers used for internet traffic were intended for phone calls and had dedicated circuits for each caller ; he wanted to create packet based routers that were optimized for internet traffic . 8 9 sindhu was joined by engineers bjorn liencres from sun microsystems and dennis ferguson from mci communications . 10 sindhu started juniper networks with 2 million in seed funding which was followed by 12 million in funding in the company s first year of operations . 11 about seven months after the company s founding scott kriens was appointed ceo to manage the business while founder sindhu became the chief technology officer . 7 12 by february 1997 juniper had raised 8 million in venture funding . 13 later that year juniper raised an additional 40 million in investments 14 from a round that included four out five of the largest telecommunications equipment manufacturers siemens ericsson nortel and 3com . 15 16 17 18 juniper also received 2.5 million from qwest and other investments from at & t. 19 growth and ipo edit juniper had 3.8 million in annual revenue in 1998 . 20 by the following year its only product the m40 router was being used by 50 telecommunications companies . 8 juniper signed agreements with alcatel and ericsson to distribute the m40 internationally . a european headquarters was established in the united kingdom and an asia pacific headquarters in hong kong . a subsidiary was created in japan 8 and offices were established in korea in 1999 . 21 juniper s market share for core routers grew from 6 % in 1998 to 17.5 % one year later 7 and 20 % by april 2000 . 22 juniper filed for an initial public offering in april 1999 23 and its first day on the nasdaq was that june . 24 the stock set a record in first day trading in the technology sector by increasing 191 % 25 to a market capitalization of 4.9 billion . 26 according to telephony juniper networks became the latest darling of wall street 27 28 reaching a 7 billion valuation by late july . 29 within a year the company s stock grew five fold . 7 juniper s revenues grew 600 % in 2000 to 673 million . 30 that same year juniper moved its headquarters from mountain view to sunnyvale california . 8 competition edit by 2001 juniper controlled one third of the market for high end core routers mostly at the expense of cisco systems sales . 20 28 according to businessweek analysts unanimously agree d that juniper s boxes were technically superior to cisco s because the hardware does most of the data processing . cisco routers still relied on software which often results in slower speeds . 30 however cisco provided a broader range of services and support and had an entrenched market position . 7 30 the press often depicted juniper and cisco as a david versus goliath story . 8 9 cisco had grown through acquisitions to be a large generalist vendor for routing equipment in homes businesses and for isps whereas juniper was thought of as the anti cisco for being a small company with a narrow focus . 6 30 31 in january 2001 cisco introduced a suite of router products that businessweek said was intended to challenge juniper s increasing market share . 30 according to businessweek juniper s top end router was four times as fast at only twice the cost of comparable cisco products . 32 cisco s routers were not expected to erode juniper s growing share of the market but other companies such as lucent alcatel and startups avici systems and pluris had announced plans to release products that would out pace juniper s routers . 30 juniper introduced a suite of routers for the network edge where it would also compete with cisco . juniper s edge routers had a 9 % market share two months after release . 20 both companies made exaggerated marketing claims ; juniper promoted its products as stable enough to make it staff bored and cisco announced lab tests from light reading proved its products were superior to juniper whereas the publication itself reached the opposite conclusion . 20 by 2002 both companies were repeatedly announcing products with faster specifications than the other in what network world called a speeds and feeds public relations contest . 4 by 2004 juniper controlled 38 % of the core router market . 33 by 2007 it had a 5 % 18 % and 30 % share of the market for enterprise edge and core routers respectively . 34 alcatel lucent was unsuccessful in challenging juniper in the core router market but continued competing with juniper in edge routers along with cisco . 35 36 further development edit in late 2000 juniper formed a joint venture with ericsson to develop and market network switches for internet traffic on mobile devices 37 38 and with nortel for fiber optic technology . 39 in 2001 juniper introduced a technical certification program and was involved in the first optical internet network in china . 8 40 12 juniper s growth slowed in 2001 as the telecommunications sector experienced a slowdown 41 and revenues fell by two thirds during the dot com bust . 42 9 to 10 % of its workforce was laid off . 43 juniper had rebounded by 2004 surpassing 1 billion in revenues for the first time that year 42 44 and reaching 2 billion in revenue in 2005 . 45 beginning in 2004 with the acquisition of netscreen juniper networks began developing and marketing products for the enterprise segment . 46 juniper had a reputation for serving isps not enterprises which it was trying to change . 47 48 by 2005 enterprise customers accounted for one third of the company s revenues 46 but it had spent 5 billion in acquisitions and r & d for the enterprise market . 49 in 2006 more than 200 us companies restated their financial results due to a series of investigations into stock backdating practices . 50 51 juniper stockholders alleged the company engaged in deceptive backdating practices that benefited its top executives unfairly . 50 52 in december 2006 juniper restated its financials charging 900 million in expenses to correct backdated stock options from 1999 to 2003 . 50 this was followed by a 169 million settlement with stockholders in february 2010 . 52 2008 present edit in july 2008 juniper s first ceo scott kriens became chairman and former microsoft executive kevin johnson was appointed ceo . 53 54 johnson focused the company more on software creating a software solutions division headed by a former microsoft colleague bob muglia . 55 juniper also hired other former microsoft executives to focus on the company s software strategy and encourage developers to create software products that run on the junos operating system . 56 juniper established partnerships with ibm microsoft and oracle for software compatibility efforts . 57 the ssl vpn pulse product family was launched in 2010 then later spun off to a private equity firm in 2014 for 250 million . 58 in 2012 juniper laid off 5 % of its staff and four of its high ranking executives departed . 59 60 the following year ceo kevin johnson announced he was retiring once a replacement was found . 61 in november 2013 juniper networks announced that shaygan kheradpir would be appointed as the new ceo . 62 he started the position in january 2014 . 63 64 in january 2014 hedge fund activist investor and juniper shareholder elliott associates advocated that juniper reduce its cash reserves and cut costs 65 before kheradpir was officially appointed . 66 that february juniper reached an agreement with elliott and other stakeholders for an integrated operating plan iop that involved repurchasing 2 billion in shares reducing operating expenses by 160 million and appointing two new directors to its board . 67 68 that april 6 % of the company s staff were laid off to cut expenses . 69 in november 2014 kheradpir unexpectedly resigned following a review by juniper s board of directors regarding his conduct in a negotiation with an unnamed juniper customer . 70 an internal juniper executive rami rahim took his place as ceo . 71 in may 2014 palo alto networks agreed to pay a 175 million settlement for allegedly infringing on juniper s patents for application firewalls . 72 acquisitions and investments edit main article list of acquisitions by juniper networks by 2001 juniper had made only a few acquisitions of smaller companies due to the leadership s preference for organic growth . 31 the pace of acquisition picked up in 2001 and 2002 with the purchases of pacific broadband and unisphere networks . 73 in 2004 juniper made a 4 billion acquisition of network security company netscreen technologies . 74 juniper revised netscreen s channel program that year and used its reseller network to bring other products to market . 75 juniper made five acquisitions in 2005 mostly of startups with deal values ranging from 8.7 to 337 million . it acquired application acceleration vendor redline networks voip company kagoor networks as well as wide area network wan company peribit networks . 76 peribit and redline were incorporated into a new application products group and their