DoJ approves HPE’s purchase of Juniper if HPE sells Instant On Wi Fi and licenses a certain code

June 30, 2025

In a Saturday missive, the US Department of Justice (DoJ), cleared the way for HPE to acquire Juniper Networks for $14 billion.

In a Saturday letter, the DoJ announced that it had approved the deal and would drop its lawsuit against it if HPE divested its Instant On business. It also said that the auction for licensing the source code for Juniper’s AI Ops for Mist was conducted. Instant On sells WiFi kit for branch office and campus. AI Ops for Mist uses artificial intelligence for network management tasks. HPE welcomed this deal

. In a company announcement CEO and President Antonio Neri promised customers “greater competition in global networking markets” while shareholders could look forward to the deal accelerating HPE’s growth “in AI data centers, service providers and cloud segments.” Nvidia is also a major player in the networking industry, with annual sales of around 15 billion dollars.

HPE does not detail networking revenue but counts the majority of it in a “Intelligent edge” segment that won $4.5 Billion in revenue in FY 2024, a decline of $852 M in one year.

If Juniper and HPE combined grow a little they could earn $10 billion in networking revenue this year, becoming the third player in the datacenter industry. HPE customers on agentic artificial intelligence: No, you’re first

HPE is working on a Plan B in case the DoJ rejects the Juniper acquisition it views as shareholders’ rocket into riches

Who is mass-scanning Juniper products and Palo Alto Networks?

Someone has installed a backdoor in Juniper routers around the world, activated by magic packets

HPE announced last week that it would use AI to automatically manage its existing Aruba network gear. It can now make this attempt with a portfolio spanning routing, switching, wireless, and has demonstrated prowess in the enterprise LANs, cloud networks, and carrier networks. Cisco can match HPE’s capabilities in these fields. It also has plans to make AI-powered network management the future. HPE announced its plans to acquire Juniper by January 2024

. The DoJ has set a deadline of 180 days for the sale HPE’s Instant On division. It also takes time for lawyers and financial people to tie up loose ends in a large takeover.

After that, the next step is usually the announcement of a new executive leadership. This is followed by a round-up of layoffs to eliminate overlaps in personnel between merging companies. (r)