Juniper (JNPR) Invests In StackPath Edge Computing Platform

Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR) recently invested an undisclosed amount in StackPath LLC, a global platform that offers secure edge computing resources, to fund R&D, engineering and go-to-market efforts within the organization. This, in turn, will likely facilitate diverse businesses to harness edge connections and edge computing capabilities for scalable mission-critical applications.

With the latest round of equity financing from Juniper and Cox Communications, StackPath has so far raised about $396 million to accelerate the development of edge computing solutions. Notably, edge computing marks a positive stride forward in providing faster processing and potentially enhanced security for business applications. It is considered to be a critical element for enterprises, service providers and firms that transition their business to the cloud. In addition, edge computing ensures cost-effective performance by complementing the cloud and on-premise solutions.

Coming back to Juniper, it earlier launched a cost-effective cloud solution for service providers. Dubbed the Contrail Edge Cloud, the product offers a full-fledged secure cloud experience to the space and power-constrained edge network, which includes base stations, hub sites and switching sites.

The Contrail Edge Cloud solution provides automation, security and analytics features to help service providers deploy dynamic consumer and enterprise services in a cost and resource-efficient manner. It offers low-latency, simple, automated delivery without sacrificing the rich functionality of a multitenant secure cloud and enables service providers to create, manage and monetize new services in the preparation for 5G.

Moving forward, Juniper is set to capitalize on the growing demand for data center virtualization, cloud computing and mobile traffic packet/optical convergence. The company is offering new suites of products, such as the T4000 core router, QFX data center platform, ACX and PTX packet/optical solution, among others. With the growing usage of smartphones and tablets, mobile data traffic has gone up. This has resulted in higher demand for advanced networking architecture, which in turn is leading service providers to spend more on routers and switches. Juniper is expected to benefit from the higher spending pattern among carriers to upgrade their networks for supporting the incremental growth in data traffic.

The stock has lost 29.8% over the past year compared with the industry’s decline of 13.4%.

Juniper currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked stocks in the industry are Motorola Solutions, Inc. (NYSE:MSI) , Viasat Inc. (NASDAQ:VSAT) and Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ:QCOM) , each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Motorola has a long-term earnings growth expectation of 8.5%. It delivered a positive earnings surprise of 6.6%, on average, in the trailing four quarters.

Viasat surpassed earnings estimates on each occasion in the trailing four quarters, the average positive surprise being 402%.

Qualcomm has a long-term earnings growth expectation of 18.9%. It delivered a positive earnings surprise of 10%, on average, in the trailing four quarters.

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