Juniper Networks Slaps Patent Suite on Palo Alto Networks - December 19

Juniper Networks is suing Palo Alto Networks cofounders Nir Zuk and Yuming Mao for patent infringement. PAN’s cofounders left Juniper in 2005 to start PAN. Zuk and Mao are accused of willful infringement of six patents Juniper Networks acquired when they purchased NetScreen in 2004. If you can’t win in the marketplace, see if there’s some way to gain a win in the courtroom. Whether this will delay an IPO (initial public offering)by Palo Alto Networks is hard to tell.

http://www.crn.com/news/networking/232300802/juniper-slaps-patent-suit-on-palo-alto.htm

To borrow heavily from William Congreve, "Hell hath no fury like a company scorned from the Gartner leaders quadrant or feeling violated about patent infringement."


Palo Alto Networks and Check Point Technologies are the only two companies in the Leaders quadrant in the December 14, 2011 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Network Firewalls. Juniper Networks is one of four in the Challengers quadrant.


Hewlett-Packard is in a somewhat embarrassing portion of the Niche Players quadrant. Hewlett Packard CEO Meg Whitman may need to have a serious talk with the security group at Hewlett Packard about this. The lower left hand corner is not “coveted”.


There’s a misconception, perhaps foisted upon prospects by vendors, that the only companies to consider purchasing solutions from are in the Leaders quadrant of a Gartner Magic Quadrant. A good document from Gartner to read is “Magic Quadrants and MarketScopes: How Gartner Evaluates Vendors within a Market”. It’s written by Gartner analyst Charles Smulders, ID: G00154752


A few sentences from the document - “To evaluate vendors in the Leaders quadrant only and ignore those in other quadrants is risky and thus discouraged.” Use a Magic Quadrant to narrow your list of choices, but don't base your decision only on the model. Talk to the Gartner analyst who created the research for more details."

http://channelnomics.com/2011/12/19/juniper-lodges-lawsuit-palo-alto/


Read the above sentences to any vendor who flashes a Garner Magic Quadrant from his slide deck during a presentation!