In 2016, Mist was getting a lot of push back from the rest of the industry. “How does a startup take on WLAN behemoths like Aruba and Cisco?” We were asked, “Is it really AI?” “Why does AI even matter?” and “Will people think AI is coming to take their jobs?” You get the idea.
So Mist forged on, and that year Gartner also recognized Mist Systems as one of the Cool Vendors in Mobile and Wireless, 2016.
As industry veterans, the Mist team knew that the old, reactive and manual way of managing networks had to give way to a new, proactive paradigm focused on user experiences and self-driving automation. And the only way to achieve this was to break free from the 15+ year-old WLAN controller paradigm and start fresh with AI-driven networks born in the modern cloud.
Fast forward to today – in just a few short years, Juniper Networks has been named a Leader in the 2020 Magic Quadrant for Wired and Wireless LAN Access Infrastructure. The Magic Quadrant is hot off the presses and Juniper is positioned highest for execution in the Leaders’ Quadrant.
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Interested in learning why we believe we’ve been recognized as a Leader? We have a ton of whitepapers and videos on AI for networking that demonstrate how our solutions, driven by Mist AI, simplify network complexity and empower your network to more autonomously support your business over the next decade. I encourage everyone to check them out.
As a marketing guy with 26 years of experience, I take special pride in being recognized as a strong market influencer. It is the first time I have personally been involved with a company that has caused a complete “about face” in a well-established industry. Traditional leaders like Aruba and Cisco are following Juniper’s long-term playbook (and messaging) for the AI-Driven Enterprise. I believe that is a true sign of a company influencing and leading a market.
Want another proof point? Check out this recent webinar hosted by Juniper and featuring industry experts from Walmart Global Tech and Dartmouth College, where we discuss Wi-Fi theory and real AIOps implementations. And here is another webinar with leaders from Juniper, MIT, Dartmouth College and UT Arlington, where we explore how leveraging a wireless solution driven by Mist AI can boost student safety with new contact tracing solutions as they return to campus. These are just a few of the many examples of how the top companies and institutions in the world are collaborating with Juniper to lead the transition to the AI-Driven Enterprise. We are fortunate to be working with these respected organizations on transforming the IT landscape in order to help drive their business success.
We are so humbled and gratified to be recognized by Gartner. All we can say is, “Wow,” and “Thank you!”
By the way, this is the second time this year Juniper has been recognized as a Leader in a Gartner Magic Quadrant. If you missed it, here is a link to the 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Center and Cloud Networking, where Juniper is a Leader for the third year in a row. We’re doing great things across the whole enterprise segment!
https://blogs.juniper.net/en-us/engineering-simplicity/juniper-recognized-as-a-leader-in-magic-quadrant-for-wired-and-wireless-lan-access-infrastructure