User talk:CorporateM/Juniper Networks

Review

Lead

No citations. Although the MoS states at WP:CITELEAD that this is not necessary, it does say "material that is challenged or likely to be challenged" should be cited. As we are dealing with a situation here where the main contributor is sponsored by the subject of the article, I think some citations found later on in the article should be simply copied up in preparation for any attempt to question the content of the lead. Specifically, I think "challenging Cisco's once-dominant market-share in networking products" needs to be cited.

Done I just added a citation to the Cisco/Juniper market-share claim, as the rest of the Lede appears to be fairly mundane information not likely to be challenged (revenue numbers, CEO appointments, etc.) I can cite the whole thing if you prefer though. CorporateM (Talk) 01:18, 21 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

No need, I just thought it was worth doing on any claim you made in the section, no matter how uncontroversial it may have been, just in case. I know what Wikipedia's like for editors reverting edits, despite those edits being improvements, and citing some policy that doesn't work in 9 out of 10 cases. SamWilson989 (talk) 01:33, 21 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Currently states "Through the acquisition of Unisphere in 2000". The company should not only be linked to Unisphere Networks, but I question the date. The article later on states the date as 2002: a date I believe to be correct. I'll allow you to change that in case I'm wrong.

Done Verified and corrected. It was 2002 CorporateM (Talk) 01:10, 21 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"Recently, Juniper has been focused..." When is "recently"? This requires a date, such as 'As of 2015,'

Done I actually trimmed this entirely as SYNTH and editorializing, so it just states the dates of CEO changes. CorporateM (Talk) 01:11, 21 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Corporate history

Under "Competition", you've written that Juniper routers' reliance on hardware made it "faster and more reliable." This definitely needs to be cited.

Done It actually relied on a citation at the end of the following sentence, but in researching it I noticed it was slightly redundant with an earlier sentence that relied on the same source, so I consolidated it with a sentence higher up in the section: "According to BusinessWeek, "analysts unanimously agree[d]" CorporateM (Talk) 01:28, 21 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Further on you mention that Juniper introduced routers "which analysts said intensified the competition". Who are these analysts? Either name one directly in the sentence or cite the source.

Done I looked into this and skimmed several sources on related topics, but all I could find was a sentence mentioning that it "would" intensify competition (a forward looking statement). So I re-worded it to take that out. CorporateM (Talk) 01:42, 21 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'd think about moving the "Acquisitions and investments" section. Reading it as a whole, the Corporate history section does not flow chronologically. Perhaps a separate section would be more suitable?

Done I don't really have a strong opinion CorporateM (Talk) 01:46, 21 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This entire paragraph is really well written, a great improvement on the original.

Products

In the SDN section, you use the phrase "in recent history". Please can you specify a date as to when this focus on SDN began.

Done I added a date for the source (2014), so it's "recent history" as of 2014. CorporateM (Talk) 01:49, 21 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

On the whole, the article is very good. However, my lack of expertise on the products you have chosen to mention in the article mean that I cannot tell whether you have cherry-picked the best products and excluded others that perhaps paint Juniper Networks in a bad light. I aim to assume good faith, so I'll say that once the edits above are addressed, I support this article going into the main space. However, I'd like an impartial editor with more expertise/knowledge in this area to have a look. On a pure language standpoint, the article is neutral. SamWilson989 (talk) 00:47, 21 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Wading through all the product news was overwhelming and it was very difficult to evaluate what to include and what not to. I tried to focus on products that introduced a new product family, put Juniper into a new market segment, or were significant for some other reason (first open-source-based switch).

It does include criticisms that the EX4200 had lackluster multicast features and that the security gateways were having "a wide range of technical issues starting in 2010, which weren't acknowledged by Juniper until 2012, when it began providing updates to the product software".

If you feel it needs more criticisms to be balanced, I was very on the fence about this Heartbleed item. It got enough press coverage to warrant inclusion, but it read like the type of security vulnerability/patch news-alert we wouldn't normally include. Maybe it is because I am a non-technical person, but I was confused as to what was significant about Juniper being one of hundreds of companies Heartbleed effected. CorporateM (Talk) 02:11, 21 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It wasn't that I felt it needed more criticism of products to be balanced, it was that I don't even fully understand what these products do, as, like you, I don't have the technical expertise. I think the one thing this article will need is a quick review by a technical editor, where they may say that the Heartbleed vulnerability should be included. However until then, I think this article is safe to go to mainspace. Thanks, SamWilson989 (talk) 06:47, 21 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Outside view

Although I have a bit of experience of Juniper and Cisco I am not the "technical editor" hoped for above! I'll just deal with the referenced claim in the lead that says "challenging Cisco's once-dominant market-share in networking products". Firstly, in the IT industry, 2002 and 2010 for the references are too long ago to be quoting in anything like a current context (or is the "challenge" said to be in 2000 and, if so, is that relevant to the lead?). Now, both companies make networking products but Cisco remains a far, far bigger company ($47.142 billion vs $4.63 billion 2014 revenue if WP is to be believed). Also, I think the challenge is rather in the specific area of routers more than switches or networking products in general. Cisco has fallen on (comparatively) hard times[1] probably to a greater extent than Juniper, but that is all. http://seekingalpha.com/article/1983191-juniper-has-the-edge-over-cisco speaks well of Juniper terms of relative growth but acknowledges "Cisco is a much larger company". Thincat (talk) 12:11, 28 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Thincat: That sentence was intended to be speaking historically. From what I found in the source material the whole Juniper v Cisco thing was a big deal from around 2000-2003 and is one of Juniper's main claims to notability, but it's more of a routine competitive environment nowadays with quite a few vendors competing and a fairly stable market-share; whereas at the time, Juniper went from almost nothing to a 30% market-share in core routers completely at Cisco's expense, now the same dynamic isn't even possible given the larger variety of vendors. It was indeed depicted as a David versus Goliath, because Cisco was always much larger. Juniper was only competing with core routers and later with edge routers (then eventually more), but Cisco sold a much larger number of products to different industries and customers. CorporateM (Talk) 14:49, 28 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your reply. Looking back to 2000 I see it being said "That appears to leave Cisco as the de facto standard in large enterprise data networks"[2] and by 2003 (or even 2015) I still doubt whether Cisco could reasonably be described as "once-dominant". Maybe a claim like "mounting a challenge to Cisco's dominant market-share in core router products". I see your 2002 reference saying "Juniper beat Cisco to market with a core router greater than 80G bit/sec of capacity and captured 94 percent market share with this class of product in 2000, according to Dell'Oro Group" which surprises me but the article goes on to speak of Cisco "leapfrogging" Juniper in, I think, 2002. It was certainly David and Goliath and they are still battling it out! Thincat (talk) 15:44, 28 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Thincat: Juniper challenged Cisco's market dominance of core routers used by internet service providers (and later edger routers and other product segments), whereas the link you provided is regarding enterprise WAN/LAN modems, an area I don't think Juniper has any significant presence in.

Cisco use to be dominant in core routers, but Juniper took 33% of their market-share in the 1990s[3] inspiring other competitors. Nowadays Cisco's market-share in core routers is down to 44%.[4]. So I think "once-dominant" is an accurate depiction of going from 100 to 44 percent market-share, but we should clarify that we're talking about core routers and edge routers used by ISPs. It's not as if they challenged Cisco's entire business as a diversified networking company. CorporateM (Talk) 16:33, 28 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I am out of date concerning Cisco's current market position (which is no surprise to me). We have no disagreement on the background and the question is only how to express matters adequately and succinctly. The developing situation over time makes this a bit tricky. Thincat (talk) 17:18, 28 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yah, I noticed the current text is a bit awkward:

"Juniper grew to $673 million in annual revenues by 2000, challenging Cisco's once-dominant market-share in networking products."

I'd suggest something like

"Juniper grew to $673 million in annual revenues by 2000. By 2001 it had a 37 percent share of the core routers market, challenging Cisco's once-dominant market-share."[5]

This adds a date and specifies that it's referring to core routers. It's a little uncomfortable getting into the weeds on content about their competitor, so please feel free to edit at will! CorporateM (Talk) 18:34, 28 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think something like that would be fine. It is reasonable putting highlights in the lead and expecting people wanting a broad picture to go on and read the article. Talking of which, I have now actually read the whole article and, based on my limited knowledge, it seems very balanced to me and is a really nice article. That must have been very difficult to achieve. Thincat (talk) 14:01, 29 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]