DOJ Greenlights HPE - Juniper Merger

$14B Acquisition means layoffs and org changes - here are the real signals.

After watching Marvis Minis, the first AI-native networking digital experience twin get introduced last summer at the Juniper Mist AI Native Now event - I’ve been watching this deal more closely than most. I still have my little figure too!

Now the DOJ has finally cleared HPE’s $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks. There are a few conditions... they’re making HPE divest Instant On, and they’re forcing Mist AI to be licensed out to competitors. Fine. But none of that is really the story.

This was never about antitrust. Or routing. Or even WiFi.

This was about architecture. And talent.

HPE tried to get Aruba to evolve. Tried to build something controller-less and cloud-native. But it didn’t land. Not in higher ed. Not in enterprise. Not where it counted. Mist did. So HPE bought what it couldn’t build.

From a workforce angle... that’s where things start to get interesting.

I’ve already seen signs in the data. Get the signals before the headlines.

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