Juniper Networks announced their earnings today.

Network equipment maker Juniper Networks Inc posted a quarterly profit in line with market estimates but forecast fourth-quarter results largely below analysts’ expectations amid uncertain customer spending. The company said it sees fourth-quarter adjusted earnings of 32-36 cents a share on revenue of $1.16-$1.22 billion.

Bad news: Juniper is struggling with at a 52 week low stock price. Good news: marketplace is in transition and Pradeep Sindhu is still at the technical helm. Here is a 1:1 interview that I did with Pradeep in early 2010. -LINK

Juniper is retooling and gearing up for a transition plan to a new networking market. As companies like HP and Arista Networks continues to out perform the market in networking, Juniper and Cisco are trying to keep their place in the market while getting strong footing in the emerging converged networking market.

Security and software will be the key to Juniper’s upcoming changes. I spoke with newly hired Juniper security guru Chris Hoff at VMworld 2011 in Vegas. Not only is Chris a great guest but a security czar. After talking to Hoff it’s clear that Juniper has a huge opportunity in mobile security.

At Oracle OpenWorld I had Eddie Amos on #theCUBE (link is here) and he gave a customers perspective. One notable comment from that Cube interview is that Juniper is accumulating a strong group of ex-Microsoft mavericks. I have been saying for some time now that Juniper has a great opportunity but needs to up their marketing game big time.

Another area that I think Juniper can capture is the software networking market with Openflow like solutions.