After the closing bell sounded on Monday, the Wall Street Journal ran a story stating that Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. was nearing a deal to acquire Juniper Networks Inc. for $13 billion. When the story ran, Juniper’s market cap was roughly $10 billion, meaning the purchase price of $13 billion represents a 30% premium on where the stock was trading.
It was an interesting year for the world’s largest networking vendor. Cisco Systems Inc. put up record revenue and earnings despite a highly volatile macro environment affected by wars, social issues, inflation, rising interest rates and the like. The company also made the biggest acquisition in its history in September when it announced the purchase of Splunk.
In the dynamic world of retail, Wi-Fi has become critical in physical stories despite the rise of online shopping. That’s according to a recent report by Retail Systems Research and Extreme Networks Inc. titled The World is Connected: The Store Must Be Too. The report surveyed 114 executives from global retail companies with annual revenues ranging from $100 million to more than $5 billion.
Posting on LinkedIn last week, Charlie Bell, executive vice president of security at Microsoft Corp., last week announced a shakeup of its security organization in the wake of a Chinese government-backed hack that resulted in the theft of U.S. government emails.
Amazon Web Services Inc.’s re:Invent is in the books, and if there was any question about whether the show is back, there shouldn’t be. Two years ago, participation was capped as we emerged from the pandemic. Last year, some businesses still had not fully embraced travel and trade shows, and that kept the show from achieving the level of audience it has had in the past.