

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. has finally been allowed to proceed with its $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks Inc. after settling a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The DOJ had tried to block the deal from going ahead by filing its lawsuit in January, arguing it would significantly harm competition in the wireless networking market. At the time, it said HPE and Juniper are the second- and third-largest wireless networking providers in the U.S. respectively, trailing the market leader Cisco Systems Inc.
However, it has now reached an agreement with the companies that requires the soon-to-be-unified company to license the source code for Juniper’s Mist AI Ops software and divest HPE’s Instant On wireless networking business unit.
The compromise was filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on June 27, and still requires the approval of a judge, but it’s thought that this last hurdle is a formality, Reuters reported. It comes less than two weeks before a trial was due to commence on July 9.
The most intriguing aspect of the compromise is that the combined company will be required to auction Juniper’s Mist AI Ops source code, for this is thought to be one of the key assets that HPE was looking to get its hands on when it first announced the acquisition in January 2024.
Rivals will thus be able to bid to access the same technology, according to the DOJ’s announcement late Friday.
“The parties must hold an auction to license Juniper’s AI Ops for Mist source code – an important component in modern WLAN systems,” the DOJ stated. “The license will be perpetual, non-exclusive, and include optional transitional support and personnel transfers to facilitate competition.”
HPE stated in its own press release that what this really means is it will have to “facilitate limited access to Juniper’s Mist AIOps technology.”
In addition to that requirement, the DOJ also strong-armed HPE into agreeing to divest its Instant On campus and brand wireless local-area networking business, including all of its software assets, intellectual property, research and development teams and customer relationships. The agreement specifies it must be sold to a “DOJ-approved buyer” within 180 days of the acquisition’s close, the DOJ added.
HPE’s Instant On WLAN software is primarily aimed at small- and medium-sized businesses, and consists of cloud-based wired and wireless networking equipment that can be installed easily with minimal hassles for information technology teams.
In a statement, HPE Chief Executive Antonio Neri (pictured) expressed satisfaction with the agreement, saying that it “preserves the intended benefits” of the original deal for both customers and shareholders, while ensuring competitiveness in the global networking market.
“For the first time, customers will now have a modern network architecture alternative that can best support the demands of AI workloads,” Neri said. “The combination of HPE Aruba Networking and Juniper Networks will provide customers with a comprehensive portfolio of secure, AI-native networking solutions and accelerate HPE’s ability to grow in the AI data center, service center and cloud segments.”
Juniper CEO Rami Rahim was just as enthusiastic, saying the agreement marks a key step forward for the companies to deliver on a critical customer need. He said it means customers will be able to access a “complete portfolio of modern, secure networking solutions to connect their organizations and provide essential foundations for hybrid cloud and AI.”
HPE has long stressed that the deal is about beefing up its position in the AI networking arena. In a keynote at HPE Discover in Barcelona in November, Neri explained that a modern networking foundation is just as important for AI as the silicon that powers large language models and gets so much attention.
“A high-performance networking fabric is essential, and we are taking our networking position to a new level, one that will disrupt the industry and extend our network and AI expertise by leaps and bounds,” Neri said.
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