Juniper Creates New Software Group, Former Cisco Exec Comes Home
Juniper also said it had reshuffled its executive ranks to align with the new group and some new priorities with service providers. Among the executive changes are the return to Juniper of Stefan Dyckerhoff, who recently rejoined the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based networking vendor from rival Cisco.
According to Juniper, the new software group will house Project Falcon -- the mobile data enablement products that Juniper will officially unveil at Mobile World Congress next week -- the Junos Space network application platform, and Juniper's Junos Innovation Ecosystem, the umbrella term for its Junos app developer community.
"Late last year, Juniper unveiled a new strategic vision and introduced a series of groundbreaking silicon, software, systems and partnerships to meet the 'New Network' demands of the next decade," said Kevin Johnson, Juniper's CEO, referring to the major product update Juniper made in October at the New York Stock Exchange. "This New Network is based on smart systems, open software platforms and an approach that adapts to changing business dynamics by embracing partnerships and unleashing innovation."
Heading up the new group will be Manoj Leelanivas, executive vice president and general manager, who was most recently senior vice president and general manager of Juniper's Edge and Aggregation unit. Leelanivas, who was the prime mover inside Juniper on Project Falcon, now reports directly to Johnson.
Elsewhere, Kim Perdikou, who was most recently the executive vice president and general manager of Juniper's Infrastructure Products Group (IPG), now has a new position that will have her reporting in directly to Johnson as well. Perdikou's role, as described by Juniper, will be an executive vice president-level position where she'll be working to develop better relations with Juniper service providers and partners.
Dyckerhoff, who is Juniper's new executive vice president for IPG and also reports to Johnson, was part of Juniper's founding engineering team and worked for the company from its 1996 launch until 2003. At Cisco, Dyckerhoff was vice president and general manager of the Edge Routing Business Unit and a key player for Cisco service provider, mobile Internet, enterprise architecture and security initiatives.
"In order to truly help service providers succeed in the next decade, their vendors need to have the right mix of superior technology, a robust partner ecosystem and a unique, collaborative approach to solving business problems," Dyckerhoff said in a statement. "This is why I chose to rejoin Juniper Networks and why I couldn't be more excited for our future."
A request for additional comment to Juniper wasn't immediately returned.