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Politics : Idea Of The Day -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: 2MAR$ who wrote (38945)	4/12/2001 3:55:44 PM
From: 2MAR$	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50167

Juniper CEO Likens Co's 1Q To Golfing Par In The Rain By Peter Loftus Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--If one were to liken competition in the network equipment sector to a golf match, Juniper Networks Inc. (JNPR) is shooting even par in the rain. That's the analogy proffered by Juniper Chairman and Chief Executive Scott Kriens to characterize the company's first-quarter results, which met expectations Thursday. The company slightly lowered its outlook for 2001, but Kriens believes Juniper is performing well in light of the slowdown in capital spending by telecommunications carriers and other corporate customers. "Should the weather clear and the sun shines, we'll score even better," Kriens told Dow Jones Newswires in an interview. Juniper, Sunnyvale, Calif., said it earned 25 cents a share, excluding goodwill amortization and other items, for the quarter ended March 31, matching the Thomson Financial/First Call analysts' consensus estimate. Revenue of $332.1 million was slightly below the consensus view. A year earlier, Juniper earned 3 cents a share, excluding items, on revenue of $63.9 million. The company expects to report nearly identical results in the second quarter. For full-year 2001, Juniper forecast earnings of 90 cents to $1 a share on revenue 85% to 100% higher than the $673.5 million posted in 2000. The company earned 53 cents a share, excluding items, last year. The 2001 forecast is slightly lower than the previous analysts' consensus, which called for earnings of $1.06 a share on revenue of $1.6 billion. Kriens said Juniper based its cautious outlook on conservative budgeting. The company's ability to accurately predict full-year results has been hampered because customers are ordering Juniper products "only as they need it, as opposed to placing longer-term orders over many quarters," he said. As the year progresses, Juniper will watch for signs that market conditions are improving, and possibly try to accelerate its growth, Kriens said. Until then, Juniper is watching expenses more closely. Kriens said the company will cut its pace of hiring. In each of the last two quarters, Juniper hired about 230 new employees, bringing the work force to 1,162. Kriens said the company won't hire at such rates in the second quarter. But unlike many other Silicon Valley firms, Juniper has no plans for cost-cutting, Kriens said. Numerous tech firms have announced layoffs this year, the latest big one being Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO), which said Wednesday it would cut up to 12% of its work force. On a positive note, Kriens pointed to Juniper's first-quarter gross profit margins, which rose to 65.8% from 65.7% in the fourth quarter. "These financial fundamentals are very important to us," Kriens said. "We'll manage our business to deliver those fundamentals because, in many ways, the new rules in this economy are the old rules all over again. Running businesses on sound metrics has never gone out of style, regardless of the speculation and excess of recent times." Juniper expects to outperform the growth of its primary market - the Internet core router market. Kriens said it's likely that the market will grow 60% to 80% to the low end of the range of industry estimates of $4 billion to $8 billion. Juniper sees 85% to 100% growth in its own revenue. Perhaps the biggest obstacle to its plans for outperformance is Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO), which still holds a majority of the market share for Internet core routers. Almost a year after Juniper, Cisco recently introduced a router that's designed to handle the highest-speed networks available. But Kriens said he isn't too worried about Cisco's efforts or Juniper's market share. "We have been successful to date by being focused on customers and not competitors," he said. "There will be competitors in the market who produce all the features we deliver successfully, but our success is a function of continuing to execute." For the record, Kriens says he a good enough golfer to shoot even par on a sunny day in Hawaii. -By Peter Loftus, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-5267; peter.loftus@dowjones.com (END) DOW JONES NEWS 04-12-01 03:54 PM