Juniper CEO retiring amid growing competition

Juniper Networks (NYSE: JNPR) CEO Kevin Johnson announced he is retiring after five years heading up the telecom networking company.  Johnson, age 52, told Bloomberg that he is retiring to focus on "personal priorities" and will remain in the job until his replacement is found.  

Kevin Johnson, Juniper

Johnson (Image source: Juniper)

The news is unexpected as Johnson, who has been CEO since 2008, helped  boost the company's  visibility amid growing competition from large rivals such as Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO) and smaller firmer like Fortinet and Palo Alto Networks.

According to Dell'Oro Group, Juniper and Cisco lead the router market, despite an industry-wide slowdown in the first quarter. Cisco and Juniper, along with Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) and Huawei Technologies, made up 94 percent of first quarter service provider revenue. 

Juniper also reported its second quarter earnings yesterday. The company said its second quarter net income was $98 million, up from $57.7 million in the same quarter last year.  Sales increased 7.2 percent to $1.15 billion, which exceeded analysts' average estimate of $1.09 billion.  Verizon (NYSE:VZ)  and AT&T (NYSE: T) are two of Juniper's biggest customers and both are in the mist of upgrading their networks.

For more:
- see this Bloomberg article
- and this ZDNet report

Special Report: Wireline telecom earnings in the second quarter of 2013

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