Exploring Experience-First Networking: An Interview with Juniper Networks EVP Manoj Leelanivas

0:00 hey everybody welcome to the future in

0:01 tech podcast i'm your host today

0:04 daniel newman principal analyst and

0:06 founding partner at

0:07 futurim research very excited about this

0:10 future in tech podcast interview series

0:11 today

0:12 we will have juniper networks joining us

0:15 uh

0:16 evp and chief product officer minoj

0:19 lilanibas

0:20 and i'm really excited about this

0:22 conversation today first of all i'm

0:24 excited to

0:25 introduce juniper networks to our

0:27 community very interesting company doing

0:29 some very progressive

0:31 things innovating on many fronts and a

0:34 company that we haven't had a lot of

0:35 attention here at futuram

0:37 but a company i plan to be talking about

0:39 a lot more in the near future

0:41 before i have minnows join us i just

0:43 want to say

0:44 first of all thank you to everyone that

0:46 stopped by everyone that's listening

0:47 whether you're listening on demand on

0:48 spotify on apple we really do appreciate

0:50 the community

0:51 make sure you are hitting that subscribe

0:53 button and spreading the goodwill

0:55 and as i always do just a quick

0:56 disclaimer this show is for information

0:58 and entertainment purposes

1:00 only so what we are talking about and

1:02 two publicly traded companies and their

1:03 executives

1:04 please do not take anything we say as

1:07 investment

1:08 advice now minogue welcome to

1:12 the future room tech podcast tech tv the

1:15 webcast video

1:16 we hit all the formats we are all about

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1:24 how they want and the network is pretty

1:26 important

1:27 in this uh in this whole thing how are

1:28 you doing today minos i'm doing great hi

1:31 daniel

1:31 hi everyone great to be here yeah it is

1:34 great to have you here as i said is my

1:36 setup while you were backstage in the

1:38 green room

1:39 you know we haven't had a lot of

1:40 presence from juniper but we are really

1:42 focused on the future

1:44 of connectivity of the network um you

1:46 know you're a company with very deep

1:48 roots

1:49 in working with the operators and

1:50 service providers building your business

1:52 and expanding into enterprise um you

1:54 know at the edge 5g

1:56 a pretty significant uh new rollout and

1:58 security in fact i spent

2:00 uh you know a good chunk of one of my

2:02 days this week

2:03 listening to your head of security

2:06 samantha madrid and her analyst

2:08 event and i thought you know really

2:09 interesting a lot of innovation going on

2:12 and by the way was super impressed in a

2:14 era of equality to see i believe it was

2:16 seven of the nine speakers that came on

2:19 the security analyst forum where women

2:21 and how cool is that but uh

2:23 so much going on how about just you know

2:26 give us the quick rundown of

2:28 you know who you are your role i gave

2:30 you everyone your title but talk a

2:31 little about what you do every day

2:33 at juniper great daniel

2:36 so i'm the chief product officer um and

2:39 what it encompasses is

2:41 you know i'm responsible for all the

2:42 products all the businesses and also

2:44 marketing

2:45 uh that's what my responsibility is uh

2:47 day in the life is you know goes all the

2:49 way from some strategic topics to some

2:51 tactical topics to you know customer

2:53 engagements and sometimes even customer

2:55 escalations so

2:56 it's the the whole sort of nine yards

2:59 in many ways but delighted to be leading

3:01 uh products and

3:03 strategy as well as you know businesses

3:05 for juniper very exciting times for us

3:08 yeah it's a big company uh performance

3:10 has been pretty strong i know the last

3:12 quarter was it was a pretty good one for

3:13 the company

3:14 uh from spending some time and advising

3:17 and working alongside

3:18 what i can say is there's a feeling of

3:20 you get both that big company feeling

3:22 and that small company feeling

3:23 um i know that probably sounds a little

3:25 bit weird to people out there but people

3:27 like yourself that are in big roles

3:29 running

3:29 really important parts of the business

3:31 publicly trade company

3:32 but also like you said you're getting

3:34 involved and engaging at times even with

3:37 big customer needs

3:38 uh which sometimes makes you feel like a

3:40 little bit of a smaller company but i

3:41 think it's all about really wanting to

3:42 be an experienced company

3:45 i i couldn't agree with you more in many

3:47 ways i think you know

3:48 we would like to think of ourselves as a

3:50 you know company with the nimbleness of

3:52 a small

3:52 startup but with the scale of a much

3:54 larger company

3:55 and many of us have been in startups

3:57 before myself in the early days of

3:58 juniper

3:59 as a startup company i have my own other

4:01 security startup company

4:02 a lot of the recent acquisitions in

4:04 which you've done startups you know

4:06 which bring that

4:07 innovation muzzle and that you know

4:09 speed the velocity muscle to the company

4:11 right so it's a great mix of you know

4:13 team

4:14 uh teams which are you know skill teams

4:16 as well as very nimble and innovative

4:18 teams

4:19 and it's an exciting time for the

4:20 company because we're blending the two

4:23 different talents together to drive

4:25 what's future for us

4:26 and and it's exciting because

4:28 enterprises are going through a huge

4:29 inflection

4:30 and we're just completely taking

4:31 advantage of that market

4:33 absolutely uh last year was a really

4:35 trying time for many industries

4:38 kovid was a stressor of many businesses

4:41 but tech

4:42 held in really well because tech really

4:44 was an enabler

4:46 for so much and obviously having the

4:49 network the capacity the bandwidth

4:50 throughput the operators that you work

4:52 with i mean

4:53 really so critical in terms of making

4:56 this last year even

4:57 stomachable for many of us you know we

4:59 being able to stream our favorite shows

5:01 being able to do our work and hop on our

5:03 zoom or

5:04 our webex calls whatever you're doing uh

5:07 you know

5:08 this tech the cloud the network the

5:11 capacity it really did enable so many

5:14 things and i

5:14 i think you went back a hundred years

5:16 and we had to suffer through what 2020

5:18 was like our lives would have been a lot

5:19 harder

5:20 um i want to take a little walk down

5:22 memory lane

5:23 you know because juniper is a big

5:26 company

5:26 and if you're a wily veteran in in

5:29 infrastructure you know who juniper is

5:32 if you come out of the service provider

5:33 or operator space you definitely know

5:35 but i don't know that juniper i would

5:37 define it as a household name

5:40 everywhere um and so you've grown

5:44 you're growing even when others aren't

5:45 growing but just give the quick

5:48 two-minute background on the you know

5:50 the who is juniper

5:51 so everybody that maybe isn't as

5:53 familiar can be familiar

5:56 totally so in terms of juniper if you

5:58 look at

5:59 um our business uh

6:02 we drive the networking infrastructure

6:04 for you know the top service providers

6:06 top 50 service providers top 20 cloud

6:09 providers

6:10 you know half of the fortune 500

6:11 companies so the networking

6:12 infrastructure is an area which we have

6:14 been dominating

6:15 but the thing which you may not know

6:17 about juniper was

6:19 juniper was predominantly seen as a

6:20 service provider company but right now

6:21 our business

6:22 you know is infinity far from 100

6:25 service providers

6:26 our service provider revenue in 2020 was

6:28 about 40

6:30 and our enterprise revenue is now about

6:32 35 percent

6:33 and our cloud revenue is over 25 so

6:36 almost 60 of the company is cloud and

6:38 enterprise and guess what

6:40 enterprise is going to be the fastest

6:41 growing vehicle for juniper in 2021

6:43 and this is drought driven by the power

6:46 of the campus and branch portfolio we

6:47 build in

6:48 with our recent acquisitions of mist and

6:50 multimedia technologies

6:51 with the data center solutions um you

6:53 know which are driven by abstract our

6:55 switching portfolio

6:56 and our security solutions so this is a

6:59 big

6:59 change in juniper it's a deliberate

7:01 shift in the strategy

7:02 and the acquisition of the last two

7:04 years has helped us propel the

7:06 enterprise business and now we are

7:07 actively taking share

7:09 from some of the big behemoths in the

7:10 enterprise industry

7:13 well those uh those distributions you

7:16 mentioned are probably going to come as

7:17 a surprise i know i spoke to one analyst

7:19 mentioned the name and they're like oh

7:20 yeah they're big with the operators

7:22 and i'm like well they're they're big

7:24 with a lot of things and the businesses

7:26 are

7:27 uh shifting the the new wave of focus is

7:30 definitely enterprise

7:32 and and as you mentioned cloud scale i

7:33 mean you basically attributed 60

7:36 of your revenue to the two businesses

7:38 that most people

7:39 i wouldn't say don't know juniper is in

7:41 but don't necessarily

7:42 see but right now it's getting closer

7:44 and closer you know it's like that uh

7:46 traditional diet of uh fat carbs and

7:48 protein 40 30 30. you're getting pretty

7:50 close to

7:51 you know operator uh cloud and

7:54 uh enterprise splitting up pretty evenly

7:57 in your in

7:57 in the enterprise uh sorry the revenue

8:00 diet of

8:01 of juniper so that's pretty that's

8:04 pretty cool

8:05 um something else i noticed in some of

8:07 the briefings i've gotten to sit through

8:09 some of the strategic

8:10 direction meetings some of the round

8:12 tables uh where other analysts have been

8:14 hosted

8:15 and i've noted i've noted that while

8:17 infrastructure comes with juniper often

8:19 look at looked as big iron

8:21 selling big switches and boxes or

8:24 at the edge little switches and boxes

8:26 but software has really become

8:28 a big component a big part of your story

8:31 um

8:31 talk a little bit about that transition

8:33 because you're not alone in that space

8:36 but it is definitely something you're

8:37 looking to differentiate on

8:39 absolutely so first before i touch

8:41 software let me start with our focus

8:43 areas

8:44 right and how it actually set business

8:46 software we are targeting enterprise

8:48 markets which are going through mega

8:49 inflections today

8:50 right if you look at the campers and

8:52 branch and today in this post-covet

8:54 world

8:54 micro branches micro campuses work from

8:57 home

8:58 all of it there is a transitioning

9:00 that's happening from legacy

9:01 infrastructures

9:02 which were managed on premise to

9:04 cloud-based architectures

9:06 so these cloud-based solutions you know

9:08 powered by say for instance mist

9:10 comprising of lan wi-fi sd-wan security

9:14 all focused on delivering a superior

9:15 user experience and also significantly

9:17 reducing operational costs so that is

9:19 what is driving this momentum similarly

9:21 on the data center side

9:22 if you look at the large enterprise data

9:24 centers are born in the cloud

9:25 you know software as a service companies

9:27 they're demanding

9:29 hyper scale like operations operations

9:31 like google

9:32 utilizing ai ops and automation and this

9:35 is another

9:36 area we are actually absolutely focused

9:38 on and our recent acquisition abstract

9:40 is a perfect file

9:41 to our industry leading switches and if

9:43 you look at the common theme across

9:45 all of what i just mentioned you know it

9:47 is software

9:48 and software is driving the key control

9:50 points for this market

9:52 and at the end of the day everything is

9:54 powered by ai and automation

9:56 portfolio going forward in software but

9:59 from a software perspective if i look at

10:01 what are the three big things from a

10:02 company perspective right number one

10:05 is we're focused on providing those

10:07 business outcomes for our customers

10:08 which really matter to them

10:10 you know let me just give you an example

10:12 from a proof of concept to production in

10:14 weeks

10:15 you know instead of months or from days

10:17 to minutes instead of days

10:19 you know having you know 10 000

10:21 different devices in the network

10:23 upgrade without a hitch it's providing

10:25 that outcome which nobody else could

10:26 give them before i think that's the

10:28 number one focus for us in software

10:30 and number two is basically you know how

10:32 do we get broader deeper relationship

10:34 with our customers

10:35 you know start at a particular place

10:37 with a control point like i mentioned

10:39 like missed start you know deploying you

10:42 know wi-fi solutions which you know

10:43 delight the customers and then add you

10:45 know wired solutions then add security

10:47 solutions all

10:48 attached to the same control point that

10:50 way our lifetime value with the customer

10:52 continues to increase

10:54 and this is the example a fortune 10

10:55 company has done exactly that started

10:57 with

10:57 you know wi-fi that meant to land then

10:59 went to sd-ram

11:00 so that that is a key part of the

11:02 software motion last but not the least i

11:04 would say

11:05 it's also about the business model right

11:07 when a company like juniper

11:08 predominantly focused on system

11:09 infrastructure

11:10 selling devices and boxes in the past

11:12 now most of the software world there is

11:14 a software

11:15 multiple expansion which also happens

11:17 with that and this is

11:19 you know this may be again news to many

11:21 people jupiter already has 500 million

11:23 dollars in software revenue in 2020

11:25 and now we're going to grow in 50 more

11:28 in the next three years

11:29 and even better we have over 100 million

11:32 dollars in recurring revenue

11:33 arr annual recurring revenue and we are

11:35 targeting 300 million

11:36 in in the next three years it's more

11:39 than doubling the revenue

11:40 right so this is the this is a three

11:43 prong strategy in software focus on

11:44 customer outcome

11:45 expand the relationships and drive a

11:47 business model which drives our multiple

11:49 evaluations so that's kind of the

11:50 overarching software story for us

11:53 yeah it's a it's a big story and by the

11:56 way anyone that's listening

11:57 you know hitting those ar targets and

11:59 hitting those software targets

12:01 are very important um that's something

12:03 that uh

12:04 with many of the it oems many of the

12:07 legacy hardware and infrastructure

12:09 players you know we've seen how the

12:10 hyperscale cloud

12:12 has has really um

12:15 driven the attention of the markets you

12:18 know we're balancing the two markets

12:20 there's the customer market

12:21 which you're serving what the customer

12:23 needs and then there's the what i

12:24 you know the stock market the the the

12:27 the

12:28 shareholders that want to see companies

12:31 that are robust and

12:32 whether it's aws and the big cloud

12:34 players

12:35 uh whether it's um you know even like an

12:37 oracle

12:38 coming out and saying hey more than 70

12:40 of our revenue is recurring

12:42 that gives your your investors and your

12:44 customers the confidence that what

12:45 you're doing what you're building

12:47 has foundation and stability well for a

12:49 lot of the big

12:50 uh hardware oems it's been harder to

12:53 come by so the fact that you've made

12:54 that pivot you've started to diversify

12:56 that business

12:57 it needs to be noted it needs to people

12:59 need to pay attention to this because

13:00 this is that the core and then you start

13:03 turning that knob and you start growing

13:05 it

13:05 and you start showing that hey we have

13:07 more revenue coming in from first of all

13:10 these uh long-term recurring sources and

13:13 second of all

13:13 these higher margin services we all know

13:16 the box

13:17 is the first thing we sell and going

13:19 back to the days of adding service plans

13:21 to a box

13:22 we added those because hey we want to

13:24 deliver our service but b

13:25 because it's how we made money in this

13:27 industry was attach

13:29 services to hardware which

13:32 brings me to something else that uh

13:34 juniper has been talking a lot about

13:36 and i did an entire session with your

13:38 executive team on

13:40 what you guys call experience first

13:42 networking so you've talked a lot about

13:43 making customers happy customer delight

13:45 customer satisfaction

13:46 well in networking it's almost hard

13:48 sometimes to imagine

13:50 um some architect in the data center

13:52 deploying a system or at the edge

13:54 at some branch with a big smile on their

13:57 face

13:57 but that's kind of what the story that

13:59 you're talking about the story juniper

14:00 is trying to tell us hey

14:01 if you're deploying our branch solutions

14:04 or you're deploying our

14:05 our data center cloud solutions we are

14:08 building our software

14:10 and our hardware to be easier to deploy

14:12 more dependable reliable consistent

14:15 um more intelligent

14:18 talk a little bit about that experience

14:22 first networking

14:23 at the end of the day let me just start

14:24 the story with you know where the

14:26 networking world was

14:27 right you know if you look at the last

14:29 decade all the focus in networking

14:32 was about uptime you know can the

14:34 network remain up

14:36 uh but now the world has shifted to

14:38 network being up is not enough

14:40 the network has to perform with a much

14:42 better experience it provide a better

14:44 user experience

14:45 better application experience so that is

14:47 the shift towards experiences networking

14:49 from

14:50 the classical high performance

14:51 networking so at the end of the day it's

14:54 about providing

14:55 a much more simplified operational

14:56 experience for our customers

14:58 our operators operators of our gear it

15:01 is also about providing a

15:02 superior and secure end user experience

15:05 an experience where your applications

15:07 work seamlessly

15:09 you know the network almost becomes

15:10 invisible so this is the crux of

15:12 experiences networking

15:14 and let me solidify it with some

15:16 examples right you know

15:18 you have daniel here right daniel is on

15:20 his own call c

15:21 you know working from his home and he's

15:23 working with

15:24 a bunch of other folks in different

15:26 places different branches and whatnot

15:28 what you really want to focus on is the

15:30 zoom experience for danny

15:32 you know daniel's zoom experience should

15:34 be stellar

15:36 right so that is experience was

15:37 networking if something happens the

15:39 network should figure out what's wrong

15:41 do the automatic corrections using ai

15:43 and ml

15:44 algorithms and then you know fix the

15:47 problem that is what the future of the

15:49 networking is it's all about that

15:50 experience

15:51 now you mentioned data center earlier if

15:53 you look at the data center

15:54 it needs to be self-healing you know

15:56 when you have 10 000 switches in a data

15:58 center

15:59 it's impossible to figure out exactly

16:00 what the problem is but you know the

16:02 network should be able to automatically

16:03 figure out the problem

16:04 and solve it so this is the experience

16:06 first networking journey

16:09 and if you double click further you can

16:11 see there are three parts to it

16:13 there is the the day zero or the day

16:15 zero minus one experience right where

16:17 you know how you engage with the

16:18 customer

16:19 how you get the install going and all

16:20 that stuff that should be seamless

16:23 day one how you actually install and

16:25 also provision something and start

16:27 a particular service and day two is the

16:29 ongoing operations

16:30 all of it needs to happen in a seamless

16:33 smooth

16:34 fashion and this is where we are putting

16:36 a lot of investment to make sure that

16:38 the network you're seeing now it's not

16:40 your dad's network anymore

16:41 right it's the network of the future the

16:43 network which is self-healing

16:44 self-correcting and self-configuring

16:47 right that is where we are

16:48 driving to focus and if you look at

16:50 operations it's all driven by ai right

16:53 you know if you look at support it's ai

16:54 driven

16:55 and now we have marvis and a virtual

16:57 network assistant

16:58 who we can converse with on what is

17:00 wrong with the network so this is the

17:02 direction we're heading

17:03 taking the industry networking industry

17:05 from an era of uptime

17:07 to experience like i said you know

17:09 channeling captain kirk from star trek

17:11 it's not your dad's network anymore so

17:13 that's that's what experience was

17:15 networking is

17:16 okay so i want to i want to push a

17:18 little bit here um

17:20 this is an opportunity i think that that

17:22 people need some clarity

17:25 everything you're offering there is what

17:28 people

17:28 need so under the whole guys and meet

17:31 the customer

17:32 where they are they need intelligence

17:34 they need self-healing they need

17:35 automation

17:37 but i would also argue that you and

17:39 everyone else is

17:40 kind of saying that right now in their

17:43 own ways

17:44 um how is juniper

17:48 differentiating and how do you see the

17:50 differentiation versus other network

17:52 providers that are also

17:54 proclaiming aiml-based intelligence

17:57 built into their networks to accomplish

17:59 this because

18:00 everything you're doing is right but i

18:03 think that a lot of people are

18:04 kind of saying something similar so

18:06 juniper's got to have its story right

18:08 where is it sticking out

18:10 great question i'm going to answer in

18:12 two parts one is you know

18:14 one about proof points and the other one

18:15 about our differentiation

18:17 right so to me at the end of the day

18:19 proof of the pudding is in the eating

18:21 when civ is now the largest itsm company

18:24 in the world

18:25 have a fundamentally different

18:26 experience they were able to reduce 90

18:29 percent

18:30 of their trouble tickets in networking

18:33 by moving to missed an air driven

18:35 solution right

18:36 actual outcome which reduced 90 of the

18:38 trouble tickets

18:40 or if you look at one of the largest

18:41 technology universities in the world

18:43 was able to get students back into the

18:45 campus because of the solution we

18:47 provide

18:47 in terms of you know wi-fi in the campus

18:50 as well as

18:50 you know the ability to track people in

18:52 this co-driven world right

18:54 so examples or if you look at the

18:56 birthplace of ai

18:58 dartmouth university right you know they

19:00 chose their entire solution based on

19:02 our campus switching and wireless

19:04 solutions

19:05 these are great examples or if you look

19:08 at some of the largest data centers you

19:09 know

19:10 we are having a video comp here you know

19:12 zoom zoom is powered with data centers

19:14 provided by juniper right these actual

19:16 outcomes is the best proof point than

19:19 anything else

19:20 i say because they saw a differentiation

19:21 which only juniper could provide

19:24 now specifically on differentiation one

19:26 of the big advantages of going after

19:28 an enterprise market which is going

19:29 through this inflection you know from

19:31 on-prem infrastructure to cloud

19:32 infrastructure data centers which is

19:34 needing automation is that

19:35 we are a company with very little

19:37 baggage if you are a large behemoth

19:40 you know whether to an ancient way of

19:41 doing things disruption is always a

19:43 problem

19:44 right eating your own young is always a

19:46 problem we don't have the problem

19:47 you know we can disrupt and we acquired

19:50 the right sort of technology to

19:51 complement the internal talent we have

19:54 so team and technology wise you know

19:56 you're one of the best in terms of

19:58 solving this problem for ai and ml and

20:00 cloud

20:01 and this is not an overnight thing right

20:03 if you look at some

20:04 some a company like miss over the last

20:06 five years they're building this

20:08 technology they get collecting data from

20:10 the customers

20:11 they're analyzing using machine learning

20:13 algorithms and doing ai and marvels on

20:15 top of it

20:16 this is not something you can you know

20:17 replicate overnight right so we have a

20:20 headroom which is for the four or five

20:22 years of the efforts we put in there

20:24 an amazing team and the ability to

20:26 disrupt because we don't need to worry

20:27 about the business we're gonna lose in

20:29 the legacy

20:29 on-prem infrastructure so the

20:31 combination of all three

20:33 makes it super powerful the only

20:35 additional piece i will say is that we

20:37 look at customers

20:38 differently you know even if their

20:39 entire solution is not from juniper we

20:41 are okay with that

20:42 unlike our comparators right so if you

20:44 look at mist if you look at abstra

20:46 they work in a heterogeneous environment

20:48 in fact

20:50 they both can work in a brownfield

20:51 environment and manage our competitors

20:53 devices well

20:54 and actually make the automation

20:56 seamless this is the strength

20:59 right this is very different from a

21:00 typical vendor customer focus this is

21:02 about

21:03 looking at the customer as a partner it

21:05 doesn't matter what switch choices you

21:07 made

21:07 we're going to make sure that your

21:09 experience is front and center

21:11 for us and we'll make sure your

21:12 experience is the best possible

21:14 it's again the customer focus and the

21:16 customer outcome so

21:17 those are the two points i would

21:18 re-emphasize yeah i think both those

21:21 points uh

21:22 are worthy of a little additional

21:24 emphasis um

21:25 look i am always one on endless uh

21:28 briefings that i take or executive

21:30 sessions i always say

21:33 where the customer wins where are people

21:36 in deploying this and buying this

21:37 because as i see it

21:38 you know it's easy to say whether you're

21:40 a cloud provider that your instances are

21:42 better if you're ai that you have

21:44 faster inferences if you're uh you know

21:47 an endpoint that your your devices have

21:49 greater battery life but

21:51 revenue customer adoption market share

21:55 uptake those are the things that really

21:57 are telling the

21:58 story behind the marketing every single

22:00 time

22:02 secondly i do like the fact uh talking

22:05 about brownfield

22:06 because there aren't a lot of

22:08 environments anymore where people are

22:10 just coming in and completely gutting

22:11 and starting from scratch

22:12 people are trying to evolve existing

22:15 infrastructure

22:16 doing this in a very agile and um

22:18 iterative way

22:20 that you know allows for hey if we roll

22:22 out

22:23 this part of the network as part of the

22:25 deployment we can add value across

22:27 the whole thing from edge to core um the

22:30 more you can really

22:32 uh tell that story and then i would say

22:35 you know just from what i spent some

22:36 time this week that security story

22:38 warrants a little bit more discussion

22:40 seems you're definitely

22:42 getting uh your uh shots in there

22:46 where you're making the investments

22:47 you're putting forward a new approach

22:51 and security's top of mind right now

22:53 it's something that even a year ago i

22:55 would say was less top of mind

22:57 but whether it's been the zoom bombings

22:59 solar winds

23:00 uh most recently the microsoft exchange

23:02 hacks you know these are different types

23:04 of security breaches than what you're

23:06 necessarily with acutely but the world

23:09 sees it all kind of the same

23:11 so companies that have a narrative on

23:12 security front and center

23:14 are going to be seen as differentiated

23:17 um and then of course if you can execute

23:19 and prove and keep getting those wins

23:21 even more so so i only got a minute or

23:23 two left with you manoj and i've really

23:25 enjoyed this conversation but

23:26 i'd love to kind of have you talk about

23:29 the future someone in your role

23:31 has to be thinking about okay what's

23:33 next so we see you've gone to arr

23:35 you're pushing towards software

23:37 experiences is

23:38 is there um and of course continuing

23:41 trying to win market share and grow in

23:43 these markets that weren't

23:45 uh necessarily your your note the most

23:47 notorious

23:48 okay i'm bored just kidding now what

23:52 now what what's coming up yeah our

23:54 mission is a

23:55 very good question again uh our mission

23:58 is uh

23:59 to connect you know everything and

24:02 everyone and also empower everyone

24:04 right it's basically power the

24:05 connections you know which connect

24:07 you know clients to cloud clients to

24:10 each other

24:10 and also you know companies to

24:12 opportunity right it's about powering

24:13 connections

24:14 it's also about empowering change

24:16 especially in this world of today

24:17 empowering change in terms of you know

24:19 the whole socioeconomic to

24:21 the geographical getting people together

24:23 so i think

24:24 the mission is from a networking point

24:26 of view

24:27 solve the toughest network challenges

24:29 right that seems to be the true north

24:31 which is heading

24:32 you know which is you know guiding us

24:34 and um

24:35 if you look at our focus in a business

24:37 perspective especially on the enterprise

24:38 side

24:39 uh it's about the client to cloud

24:41 experience in this new

24:43 post-covered world uh where things are

24:45 going to be more of a hybrid nature

24:47 how do we look at a holistic experience

24:49 from client for client to cloud

24:51 doesn't matter whether you're working in

24:52 a branch or a campus or a micro branch

24:54 or home

24:55 how do you get that experience which is

24:57 secure

24:58 this is where security client to cloud

24:59 all the way is super important too

25:01 and all of the networking connectivity

25:03 part is super important so that's one

25:04 piece of the equation

25:05 the second one is it's all about the

25:07 data center and the cloud how do you

25:09 power the data into the cloud and make

25:10 it automated make it efficient

25:12 make itself healing right so those are

25:14 the two streams where we see

25:16 lots of innovation and opportunities and

25:17 that continued to be our focus on the

25:19 enterprise side

25:21 and furthering the mission is about

25:24 you know making that future happen where

25:26 it is really a self-driving

25:28 network it's self-configuring you know

25:30 self-healing in many ways

25:32 and self-operating uh in the perfect

25:35 world networking should be invisible

25:37 uh you know we should not be thinking

25:39 about networking

25:40 daniel should not be thinking about

25:41 networking you know it should just work

25:44 and i think that that is the mission we

25:46 are on we started off with

25:47 um you know providing the best the

25:50 fastest the better switches and routers

25:52 now we are on a mission to provide that

25:53 experience which is fundamentally

25:55 different from whatever competitors can

25:56 provide

25:57 and focus on customer outcomes and focus

25:59 further on

26:00 making that whole networking invisible

26:02 and this is where

26:03 you know we're going to be successful as

26:05 a company

26:09 uh executive vice president chief

26:11 product officer juniper networks it's

26:13 been an

26:13 absolute pleasure to have this

26:15 discussion with you

26:17 uh we're gonna have to have you back

26:18 because i'm gonna have more questions

26:20 we're certainly gonna have

26:21 to kind of circle over the next six and

26:24 12 months

26:26 um to sort of see how these things are

26:28 executing i want to hear about

26:29 these revenue streams are you getting

26:31 this growth in software

26:32 are you getting this growth in are how

26:34 about that uptake on

26:36 um security the self-healing i agree

26:39 with you 100

26:40 aiml at every corner and every turn and

26:43 by the way these are the real

26:44 applications everybody out there

26:45 for ai and ml um i know everybody thinks

26:48 about

26:49 siri on their phone and and you know

26:51 different

26:52 speaker and assistants and there's some

26:53 cool things that those are doing but

26:55 this type of a

26:56 ai ml is actually what's keeping all the

26:58 software all your

26:59 applications the 300 plus sas

27:01 applications most enterprises are

27:03 running

27:04 up and going all day every day to keep

27:06 your

27:07 life in order but minoj thanks so much

27:10 for joining me today

27:11 thank you for having me daniel it's

27:12 always a pleasure to talk to you and you

27:14 know great to meet your audience too

27:16 thank you all right i'm going to throw

27:17 you out into the green room and i'll be

27:18 right back after i wrap

27:20 this up well everybody a great

27:21 conversation there with minoj

27:23 lilani vos from juniper networks it was

27:26 great to have the company come in

27:27 introduce itself tell its story talk

27:29 about its differentiation

27:30 look it's competitive it's a competitive

27:32 space and clearly the company is doing

27:35 some things

27:35 very very well you're hearing about it

27:37 it's it's it's very specific it's the

27:39 growth

27:40 it's the market share it's the wins

27:41 that's what we're paying attention to

27:42 that's what we're seeing that's what

27:44 minoj was talking about on this podcast

27:46 today but we're going to hold them to it

27:47 we're going to bring them back we're

27:48 going to talk about

27:49 all things um performance making sure

27:51 that the company's living up to its

27:53 promise

27:53 a competitive space but a very important

27:56 space and all you watching this

27:57 it's companies in this exact space

27:59 that's making that possible uh for this

28:02 episode

28:02 of the future in tech podcast interview

28:04 series i want to thank juniper

28:06 for being a good partner and and and

28:08 having menez join today

28:09 well thank you all the subscribers out

28:11 there that have tuned in that download

28:13 listen

28:13 record uh let's get the word out there

28:17 many more of these kinds of

28:18 conversations in our archives but for

28:20 this episode

28:21 it's time to say goodbye and we'll see

28:23 you later