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When HPE announced<\/span> its intention to acquire Juniper Networks<\/a> for $14 billion in cold, hard cash earlier this month, it was a bit of a shock. Sure, HP had already bought Aruba<\/a> in 2015 for around $3 billion. Grabbing another networking company would presumably just add another layer to that business. Of course, there are always complications incorporating one large organization into another, and HP doesn\u2019t exactly have the best record for being a smooth operator<\/a> where that\u2019s concerned over the years.<\/p>\n But surprisingly, the companies didn\u2019t position this conscious coupling as a pure networking play. In fact, in a blog post announcing the deal<\/a>, Juniper CEO Rami Rahim suggested it was more about AI. \u201cThis combination with HPE is expected to enable us to deliver more comprehensive, more competitive, truly end-to-end experience-first AI-native solutions,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n Regardless of how you position it, the deal, which pays $40 a share, or a 32% premium over the closing price on January 8 (per CNBC<\/a>), represented the kind of offer that was hard for Juniper to refuse. Assuming regulators don\u2019t object \u2014 not exactly a given these days \u2014 this deal could close later this year or early next. They are giving a lot of wiggle room for regulatory oversight.<\/p>\n Since the deal was announced on January 12, HPE investors seem lukewarm about it; that is, if the stock price is any indication of their sentiment. Consider that on January 8, the day the WSJ broke the news<\/a> that a deal between the two companies was imminent, the stock price sat at $17.72 a share. By January 12, when the deal was officially announced, the price was down to $15.89, and it has been wallowing there ever since, closing Thursday at $15.92, down almost 8% for the month. That\u2019s not exactly a ringing endorsement.<\/p>\n With a couple of weeks in the rearview to digest this deal, we decided to look at just what this was about, and whether investors should maybe be a little more positive about it. As you\u2019ll see, the companies think the numbers look pretty good, and they really do match up well (so long as HPE doesn\u2019t mess it up).<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to find anything these days in tech that isn\u2019t being positioned with an AI focus, so it shouldn\u2019t come as a surprise that the companies are making AI the centerpiece of this deal. But is that really accurate?<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\nIs it really about AI?<\/h2>\n